


Regarding Swans and Crows

by cheshire6845



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, finding regina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:26:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 36,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6827689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshire6845/pseuds/cheshire6845
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A/U Detective Emma Swan joins the Storybrooke PD and meets her new partner Detective Regina Mills. It's a rocky partnership that only has more problems when Regina goes missing.<br/>Heavily inspired (spoilers!) by the video "Finding Regina" by reginamlls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Day

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of notes: Obviously I own nothing regarding these characters. I'm not new to writing fanfic, but I've got a lot of firsts with this story. First OUAT fic (so please be gentle), first story to be written in the regular modern world, first post to AO3, and first fic derived from a video. 
> 
> And speaking of that video, It's Awesome!! Finding Regina by reginamlls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA1G_GeKJcs It's fairly spoiler-y so maybe watch it after reading... but yeah, I watched it, fell in love with it, and then didn't find a fanfic for it so I started writing. I can only hope I do it justice.
> 
> Many thanks to Froot for being an awesome beta for me! 
> 
> The story is complete so no worries it won't be finished. I post in parts so I can tweak scenes right up until the last second. I will post regularly.  
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emma Swan briefly closed her eyes and took a calming breath. Starting a new job felt a hell of a lot like the first day at a new school. Considering she’d attended six high schools in four years, she knew how to handle first-day jitters. She opened her eyes, followed quickly by the car door, and slid out from behind the steering wheel. A quick check that her detective’s shield was still on her hip as she leaned back into the car and grabbed her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. Last, she grabbed the pistol and holster from the deep back pocket of the front seat and slid it underneath the waistband of her jeans, reassured by its weight pressing against the small of her back. Not bothering to lock the door of the yellow VW bug, she turned around and took in the sight of her new office. 

Storybrooke Police Department was definitely a step down from Boston PD. The building was about a quarter of the size and as she understood it, so was their staffing. Eight officers, four detectives, and one lieutenant were the full time staff. They were supplemented by the county with a crime analyst, K-9 unit, and medical examiner. Emma knew there would be nowhere to hide if she started out badly. She squared her shoulders and walked in through the back door.

She’d stopped by briefly to introduce herself the week before. Most of the officers and detectives had been out or coming in later, but given that it was almost six o’clock in the evening she was surprised to find the place once again deserted. “Hello?”

In the officer bay there was a single open desk. It was edge to edge with another desk that was eerily tidy with what looked like a precisely arranged desktop, including a tucked away keyboard and a neatly contained assortment of pens. She inwardly groaned. Keeping a neat desk was not high on her list of priorities when working a case, but she had a feeling her new partner thought differently. She set her bag down and took in the rest of the bay. 

Case boards, a couple of flat screen TVs and general building security feeds were ever present. The other desks all looked much more familiar with folders and case files piled haphazardly on corners, computer screens with multiple post-it notes attached to them, unkempt cords crammed through hidey-holes, trash cans with take-out food containers and balled up papers. At least if she was disorganized, she wouldn’t be alone. 

Wondering what had called everyone out, she started towards the back room where the lieutenant had gestured towards during her brief tour. He’d called it The Shop and said that someone whose name Emma had already forgotten could usually be found in there. She knocked on the door and heard a cheery female voice bid her enter. 

Emma eased open the door and saw a young brunette wearing headphones wave her further in. The Shop was crammed with multiple computers each with about three screens a piece, maps of the city and county adorned the walls, and one corner was dedicated to radios. In the middle of it all, the young brunette typed away on a keyboard with one hand while hitting a radio mike with the other. “Tracker is up and running. Audio test is good.” 

“Copy,” a voice echoed back out of the radio. 

She finally took the headphones off and turned to Emma. “Hi, you must be Detective Swan.”

Emma shook her outstretched hand. “And you must be the analyst?”

“Belle French,” she said with a bit of an accent. “Delighted to meet you, but you’ve come on a really busy night.” She held up a finger as she listened to the radio traffic for a moment. Deciding it wasn’t directed at her she continued, “We’re running a last minute op based on a short fuse tip out of Boston. It’s all hands on deck. David, sorry Lieutenant Nolan, went to the diner for a quick bite. He said you could meet him over there and just jump in with him tonight.”

“Oh, okay,” Emma said, stepping out of Belle’s way as she slid her chair over to a different computer. “And uhm, where’s the diner?”

Belle looked up at her, realization dawning. “Oh! Right! Sorry. Yeah, you just go out the front door of the building, turn right, and walk about three blocks. Granny’s diner, can’t miss it.” 

“Thanks.” 

Belle nodded, head already buried back in her work as Emma let herself back out. Grabbing her bag with her gear in it, she headed for the front door. She shook her head a little bit as she walked; she’d been certain Storybrooke was going to be slow compared to Boston but it sure wasn’t starting out that way.


	2. The Arrest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just imagine the town of Storybrooke is a little bit larger than what we see on TV. Thanks.

An hour later, Emma was sitting in her lieutenant’s unmarked cruiser watching the main street of Storybrooke. The cruiser was tucked back in the mouth of an alley, hopefully looking more like a speed trap than surveillance. Apparently, the city of Boston had birthed a new serial killer in the months Emma had been off duty. He liked to arrange dates with high end call girls from the city, arrange to pick them up out in the suburbs, and then instead of a happy ending the girls ended up dead. Except for the latest one who had played dead and waited for him to leave. With a bit of luck, Boston PD had managed to keep her survival a secret, and for once the madams of Boston had been more than willing to share a little info with the boys in blue. Three days after the girl had made her way to safety, the call had come in requesting a brunette with attitude to meet quietly in Storybrooke. 

“I don’t get it,” Lt Nolan said, breaking the silence in the car. “Why the suburbs?”

Emma glanced at him then back out at the quiet streets of her new home. “A misplaced sense of confidence,” she suggested. “No one will recognize me outside the city.”

David snorted lightly. “Clearly this guy has never lived in a small town before.”

Emma had never lived in a town as small as Storybrooke before. She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“In a big city, no one knows who you are or cares what you’re doing,” he explained. “Here? If your cat and dog are fighting, your neighbors are going to be talking about it. You’ll hit up Granny’s in the morning for coffee and the vet will be there waiting to give you tips on how to get your pets to behave.”

“Seriously?” 

David grinned. “You’ll see.”

The radio crackled to life and Belle’s voice sounded in the cruiser. “Audio call incoming. He wants to meet outside the Rabbit Hole. He’s driving a black BMW and will pick her up in five minutes.”

“Copy that Belle,” David responded.

“I’ve got the eye,” another male voice said. 

“Detective August Booth,” David told Emma and pointed out a Harley Davidson Fat Boy parked in front of the Rabbit Hole. They watched as a man exited the bar and straddled the motorcycle. He appeared to be talking animatedly on a cell phone. 

“Heading for the roof of the bakery,” a third male voice said over the radio.

“Detective Killian Jones,” David answered Emma’s unspoken question, “and we’ve got a few marked units in position to cover the ways in and out of town. Luckily, there are only two main roads.”

“I’m in position,” Killian said sounding slightly out of breath. 

They watched as a black BMW rolled slowly down the street. David keyed the radio mike. “Belle, send her in.” 

Emma was half-watching the door to the bar and half-watching the BMW. She almost missed seeing the brunette sauntering down the sidewalk from the opposite direction. “Whoa.” 

“What?” David asked.

“I’m guessing that’s our girl,” Emma said, gesturing out the window. The woman wore knee high boots paired with a skirt that barely reached mid-thigh and a dark coat that reached her knees offering a tantalizing glimpse of bare leg with every step she took. She exuded authority and clearly didn’t belong on Storybrooke’s sleepy little streets. “I’m surprised she agreed to wear a wire.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

Emma shrugged not taking her eyes off the woman as she approached the idling BMW. “A high-end call girl willing to turn on a john. That’s not the kind of reputation those women want to have.”

David’s mouth was slightly open as he almost formed words before the radio crackled to life. 

“She’s getting into the car,” Booth reported. 

“Damn it,” David cursed, his attention refocusing.

“Audio is good,” Belle reported. “They’re negotiating a location. And prices for…things.”

Emma smirked; she could hear Belle’s blush through the radio. 

“Well don’t keep us on pins and needles, lass,” Killian’s voice broke over. “What are the going rates these days?”

“Cut the chatter,” David said, Emma catching his small grin. “Booth?”

Booth was on his feet, circling his bike as he continued to talk on his phone. “They’re good. Still appear to just be sitting there talking.”

“I see brake lights,” Killian broke in. “They’re getting ready to leave.” 

“They agreed to continue their discussion at the hotel,” Belle reported. 

Emma glanced at David as he put their car in gear. With so few people out on the streets, they weren’t going to have much cover between them and the BMW. He nodded in acknowledgment, thinking along the same lines. “No choice, really,” he said. “We aren’t letting them out of our sight.”

“Good.” Emma understood that Boston PD would love to get something incriminating on audio, but her priority was the woman in the car and keeping her safe. “How far do we let this go?” She hoped not into the hotel room. 

“Not far,” David said tightly, pulling out onto the street as the BMW left the bar. “Killian get to your ride.”

There was a clicked acknowledgment and Emma saw Booth leaving the motorcycle and climbing into the cab of the pickup parked next to it as they passed.

“Belle, how are we doing?” 

“Tracker is up and working perfectly,” she answered, hesitated. “He asked her if she was willing to play out his kinks. He claims he’s done bad things and should be punished.”

“Well, our boy isn’t shy, is he?” Emma muttered. 

“Oh!” 

“Belle, what is it?” David asked hurriedly.

“Oh, she is not happy,” Belle answered quickly. “I think he tried to put his hand on her thigh. He laughed it off though.” David swore again under his breath. “Has she given any of the signals?”

“No. I think she’s all right.” 

“I’m at the hotel,” Killian reported. “They’re about two blocks away.”

Emma frowned as she watched the BMW. It was showing no signs of turning off. “He’s not going to stop at the hotel.”

David glanced at her then back at the BMW in time to see it pass the street for the hotel. He keyed the radio. “We’re past the hotel and accelerating west out of town. We are west bound. They do not leave the city. Everyone copy?”

“Audio is down! I just lost the audio!” Belle reported. “I think…I think he hit her!”

“That’s it.” David hit the lights, red and blues blazing to life on the dark, forested street. 

Emma saw more red and blues in the distance at the road block and behind them coming from August’s truck. The BMW swerved into the left lane and then all the way back across the right and onto the shoulder. Emma tensed, preparing to jump out of the car at the earliest possible moment. The BMW traveled along the shoulder for a few moments, jerking to the left twice before finally swerving right again and down into the grassy ditch. 

David pulled ahead, stopping in front of the BMW as Booth’s truck pulled in behind. Emma jumped out of the cruiser before David had it in park. She approached the driver’s side door and ordered the man to get out of the car. She tensed when the passenger door was flung open and the woman practically hurled herself from the BMW. Emma saw Booth move forward, ushering the woman past him, and felt David closing in at her back. More vehicles were approaching and the swirling lights painted the woods like a nightmare disco scene. 

She could finally see the man’s face. He was clutching a profusely bleeding nose. Emma smirked. Good for her. “Sir, get out of the vehicle. Now. If you do not comply, we _will_ assist you.” 

When he didn’t drop his hands from his face, she stepped closer, gun still raised and aimed at his head. With one hand she reached for the door handle and opened the door. David and Booth were both stepping forward, shouting orders at the man. Shakily he raised his hands and held them out of the door. It was over within seconds as David put him on the ground, a knee in his back as he wrenched the man’s arms into handcuffs. 

Once Booth was escorting the man to the back of the marked police cruiser and David was calling Belle to give her an update, another man wearing his badge on a chain around his neck approached Emma. “Nice work, Detective.” He offered her his hand. “Killian Jones.”

“Thanks,” she said a little self-consciously. “Emma Swan.” She looked over towards the ambulance. “Is the woman all right?”

He glanced towards the ambulance as well. “Oh, she’s fine. Busted lip but she’ll live.”

Emma frowned. “Your compassion is heart-warming.” 

A slow smile broke out over Killian’s face. “Well, she was quite adamant that she didn’t want to talk to me.”

Emma had the distinct impression that Killian Jones thought quite highly of his own charm. She grinned back at him. “Maybe you just aren’t her type.”

One dark eyebrow raised. “And you think you are?”

“Maybe.” Emma shrugged one shoulder, looking over it towards the brunette. The woman was holding an ice pack against her mouth and managed effortlessly to make even that look sexy. Clearly, she was in the right profession.

“I’ll make a wager with you then,” Killian said. “You go over there and talk to her, manage to get a statement from her, and I’ll buy the first round of drinks once we finish up here for the evening.”

Emma shook her head. She might as well get the subject of her sexual preferences out in the open. It might head off a few people asking out the new girl in town. “That’s a nice wager, Killian, but you are definitely not my type.” 

“But she is?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.” She nodded emphatically. Tall, dark, and sexy, what wasn’t to like.

“Ah,” he said, understanding dawning. “Well then, a wager between new friends.” His eyes were still full of mischief as he offered his hand in agreement. “Care to take me on, Swan?”

Her eyes narrowed. She felt like she was definitely being set up for something but she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. She gripped his hand. “Is this a new person thing? Like an initiation or hazing?”

Killian inclined his head as they shook on the deal. “Most definitely.” He looked past her shoulder. “Better hurry, Swan. Your witness is leaving the scene.”


	3. Making a Statement

Emma half jogged down the row of cars parked along the side of the road to catch up to the woman in black. If there were any other crimes happening that evening, there weren’t going to be any officers available to respond as it seemed every cop in Storybrooke was at the scene. “Hey! Excuse me, Miss!” 

The woman kept walking, either unaware Emma was calling to her or willfully ignoring her. Emma was pretty sure it was the latter, but she caught up easily enough and put herself in front of the woman. “Hi, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you can’t leave yet.” 

“Excuse me?” the woman asked, glaring at Emma. The hand holding the cold pack against her mouth dropped down to her side, revealing a split bottom lip. “Who the hell are you?”

Emma straightened her shoulders, her back stiffening. The woman may have been a victim in all of this, but Emma reacted to the aggression rolling off of her in waves. Emma took a step back just to give them each a little more personal space. “I’m Detective Emma Swan, Storybrooke PD.”

The brunette sized her up and huffed out a short breath. “Of course, you are.” She tried to step past Emma and found the blonde moving with her, blocking her. Her hand clinched around the keys she was carrying as she tried for patience. “Detective Swan, it’s been a long night,” she tried. “I have a raging headache and I’d like to go home now. If you’ll excuse me-”

“Just as soon as you make a statement,” Emma argued. “It sucks; I get it, and we really appreciate your help this evening, but you know…paperwork.”

“A statement?”

Emma hooked her thumbs in her back pockets. “You are kind of the key witness here, ma’am.”

“No,” the brunette drawled out, reaching into her pocket. “I’m kind of the lead detective here.” She showed the blonde her badge. “Regina Mills, Storybrooke PD.”

“Oh, shit.” Emma whirled around to look back up the row of cars. 

Regina looked as well and saw several officers and her former partner standing together watching the scene play out between the two women. They were all grins and Killian had the audacity to wave. She ignored them and put her badge back in her pocket. 

“Asshole!” Emma yelled at Killian.

“You owe me a beer, Swan!” he yelled back thoroughly enjoying himself. 

“Don’t encourage their immaturity,” Regina muttered, finally managing to slip past the blonde. 

After flipping off Killian, Emma caught back up to Regina just as she unlocked the door to a black Mercedes. “Nice ride…wait, is this your car? How did you get your car here?” 

“I had a friend bring it,” Regina said shortly as she slid into the front seat. She really wanted to get home before the headache decided to go full-on migraine. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Yeah, sure. I just, you know, wanted to apologize for earlier.” She took a step back so Regina could close the door. 

Regina hesitated. “What exactly are you apologizing for, Detective?”

“Well, because I thought you were…you know, a call girl.” Emma stumbled over her words trying to explain herself when Regina just stared at her. “I mean that’s what they told me the plan was and clearly no one bothered to tell me who you were. Then you showed up wearing…well, what you’re wearing.”

The brunette blinked. “So you thought I was dressed like a hooker?”

Emma was so glad it was dark as she could feel the flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. “No! I mean, yeah, but like an expensive one.” She should really stop talking. “You looked great!”

“I see.” Regina closed the door and started the car. She rolled the window down as the engine settled into a purr. “I was out on another case when I got the call to come back to the office. This is simply the clothes I wore to work today.” She dropped the car into gear and gave Emma a wicked smile. “Welcome to Storybrooke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tagged this story as SwanQueen relationship, but due to the plot nature of the story, it's going to be awhile before we get to any relationship stuff. Lots of Emma and Regina just not with the sexy fun if that's what you're looking for.   
> Thanks for reading!


	4. Tuesday Mornings

“Oh, crap, hide me.”

Standing by the bar, waiting for his morning coffee, Killian laughed as Emma grabbed him by the jacket and turned him towards the front door of the diner. The bell jingled as the door opened and Regina entered the establishment. “Are you cowering in fear, lass?” 

Emma thumped him on the back as she ducked behind him. “Shut up.”

Granny put two travel coffees on the bar beside them and gave the blonde a strange look. “Everything all right?”

Emma shooed her away. “God, Killian this is all your fault.”

Killian raised his coffee in salute to the other end of the bar. “Good morning, Regina.”

“Jones,” she acknowledged as she handed over a few dollar bills to the girl at the register, paying for her own coffee. She accepted the proffered mug and turned to leave. “Swan.”

“Morning, Regina,” Emma said sheepishly, straightening although Regina was already out the door. She thumped Killian again just as he was about to sip his coffee. “I really should have just shot you that night. Maybe then she’d like me. Or at least have a little more respect for me.”

Killian wiped the front of his shirt with a handful of napkins. “You want that woman to respect you and yet you hide behind me like a small child?”

“I just didn’t want to deal with her this morning, that’s all.”

“She is your partner,” he pointed out.

Emma glared at the reminder. “Yes, I know, but I was hoping to make it another thirty minutes or so before I had to face her death glare.”

“Is she still sore at you for the hooker thing? It’s been two months.”

“Yeah, well some people know how to hold a grudge.” She headed for the door, giving Granny a wave as they left. “I’ve tried everything with her. I bought her donuts the next day; she pushed them away and said high-end call girls don’t eat pastries. The next day I brought her salad; she asked if I was implying she needed to lose weight.” 

Killian laughed outright. “That’s our Detective Mills!”

“I tried to get her to go out for a beer after work; she said she was too refined for beer.” Emma looked exasperated. “Who’s too refined for a beer?”

“Regina,” they said in unison.

“And since when does she start this early? She’s usually not in Granny’s this time of day.”

“Ah,” he said, “it must be Tuesday then.”

“Tuesday?” 

“Every Tuesday morning Regina meets with Mrs. Williams; the mother of a missing boy in a cold case that Regina worked five years ago. The boy left home one morning for school and never arrived. No one has seen him since. The woman insists on meeting with Regina every week to find out if there have been any updates in her son’s case,” Killian explained, his lighter mood from earlier disappearing. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve been off on Tuesdays,” Emma said. “I just switched shifts with August.”

“Well then, you’re in for a real treat because meeting with Mrs. Williams does wonders for Regina’s mood. If she’s stuck in the office today, she’ll be hellfire and brimstone all day.” He shook his head. “Nolan should put a stop to the meetings. Regina may see it as her duty, but it’s nothing more than a damn torture for her.”

Emma was genuinely surprised by his concern. Killian and Regina were barely polite to each other. “How do you know all that?”

“I used to be her partner.” He frowned. “I thought you knew that.”

She shook her head. “Regina hasn’t seen fit to mention that detail.”

“She isn’t the mentioning type,” he conceded. “We may generally want to kill each other on a daily basis, but I’ve got a soft spot for her.”

“I see that.” Emma learned something new every day about her co-workers. She pulled open the front door of the precinct and immediately saw Regina sitting on a bench talking with a smartly dressed younger woman with dark skin. Her straight dark hair brushed her shoulders as she nodded at something Regina was saying. Emma waited until she and Killian passed into the back offices before she asked, “So that’s her?”

He nodded. 

“Where was she when her son disappeared?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Planning to reopen the case?”

She shrugged. “A fresh pair of eyes looking over it couldn’t hurt.”

“And how do you think Regina would take it, if you found a lead she’s missed for five years?” he asked, dropping into the chair behind his desk.

Not well would be an understatement. Emma tried anyway. “Grateful?”

“If by some miracle, you found out what happened to the boy, aye, she’d be grateful,” he admitted. “She’d also never let you forget it. Maybe you’d like to check over all of her unsolved cases. Maybe you’d like to check over her _solved_ cases and make sure she didn’t miss anything on those. Or maybe-”

“I get it.” She waved him off. “Also your impression of her is kind of creepy.”

He nodded thanks for the compliment. “Best to just leave this one alone.”

Emma drummed her fingers on her desk. Leaving things alone wasn’t what she was good at. “You were her partner. Did you ever look over the case?”

“Aye,” he admitted. “There’s nothing there. No witnesses, no evidence, no crime scene. None of his friends knew anything. No one saw anyone new in town that day. No strange cars, the weather wasn’t bad, and no sign of the boy. He just disappeared.” 

“Kind of like magic?” She didn’t like it, but she knew stranger things had happened. In big cities, people went missing all the time. They simply vanished. 

“The town may be called Storybrooke,” Killian said darkly, “but not everyone gets a happy ending.”


	5. Housewarming

Emma sipped a glass of hard cider and looked at her house full of people. After four months, she’d finally gotten everything unpacked and with a bit of prodding had decided to have an official house-warming party. She was pretty sure everyone from the precinct along with their spouses were crammed into her living room including two on-duty officers who stopped by to grab dinner.

Every conceivable surface in her kitchen was covered with dishes. When the guys had suggested a pot-luck, she’d been a little hesitant, but apparently everyone in Storybrooke knew how to cook. There’d been tacos, meatloaf, and a rather spicy lasagna; the chaplain had even brought a cake that they hadn’t cut into yet. Multiple bottles of wine had already been emptied and Emma was feeling quite pleased with the turnout. 

August sidled up next to Emma, minus the blonde on his arm that he had arrived with, and grabbed another beer from the melting ice in the cooler on the floor. He fished a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and teased handing it to her. “Admit it,” he said, “you told her, didn’t you?”

Emma snatched the money from his hand and pocketed it. “Oh right, like I’d actually admit to Regina that I made another bet regarding her because the first one went over oh-so-well.”

August leaned against the counter beside her. “So how did you get her to come, then?”

“I invited her,” she said simply, watching the woman in question as she stood talking to the lieutenant and his wife, a small woman with a dark, pixie haircut named Mary Margaret. 

Emma acted casual about it, but she had been as surprised as anyone when Regina had walked through the door, carrying the lasagna tray. Everyone, and she did mean everyone, had told Emma that she could invite her partner to social gatherings until she was blue in the face, but the woman would never attend. She’d been happy to see her. She’d be even happier once Killian paid her twenty bucks as well. 

She heard footsteps on the stairs and was only a little surprised to see Henry venturing out of his room. She hid her smirk, knowing it was only hunger that had spurred the young teenager to be somewhat sociable. He quickly navigated the room, nodding politely at people he didn’t particularly want to meet, sliding quickly past the Nolans who he’d met earlier and Regina, until he finally made his way into the kitchen. 

Emma handed him a plate. “Fix yourself something to eat, kid.” 

“Thanks.” He eyed August and manners that his mother had drummed into him won out. “I’m Henry.”

The detective shook his hand. “August Booth.”

“Henry is my godson,” Emma explained as the boy served himself the last of the lasagna. “His mother had to go out of town for business unexpectedly so he’s staying with me for the weekend. Much to his chagrin.” She tried half-heartedly to muss his hair but he ducked out of her reach. 

“I’m going back upstairs,” he muttered, juggling two plates of food and a can of soda. 

“Henry,” she scolded mildly.

He glanced at her and then August. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Booth.”

Booth grinned as the teenager left the kitchen and scampered up the stairs. “You know, for a minute there, Swan, I thought I was about to find out a whole new side of you.” 

“What?” she asked distractedly as she put the empty lasagna tray into the dishwasher. She looked up when August didn’t continue. “Oh! You thought Henry was my son?”

“He kind of looks like you,” August admitted. 

“Don’t let his mother hear you say that,” she muttered. She caught a glimpse of movement by the front door and saw Regina gathering her coat from the rack. “Excuse me for a minute, would you?”

Emma was a ninja at slipping out of parties unnoticed. She couldn’t say it really surprised her that Regina was adapt at it as well, but she caught up to the woman before she made it halfway to her car. “Archie made a cake. You don’t want to stay for a piece?”

Regina spun around. She didn’t know if she was more surprised she got caught leaving or that someone bothered coming after her. She shrugged a little bit. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Emma found herself flatfooted; she hadn’t put much thought into this plan. “Okay.” Actually, zero thought beyond chasing the woman out the door and she’d done that. She turned to go back inside.

“Thank you,” Regina said again, catching her before she got more than a couple steps away.

Emma turned back, head cocked slightly to the side. “You just said that.”

“F-for inviting me,” Regina admitted. “It was nice.”

Emma beamed. “I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” she said, ducking her head. “I hope the boys pay you the wager they lost.”

“You knew?” Emma was never betting with the guys again. At least, not about Regina. The woman always seemed to find out. “I am so sorry. We didn’t mean-”

Regina held up a hand. “It’s fine, really. I know I’m not the most sociable person, and I overheard the three of you in the squad bay one morning.” She shrugged again and looked off to the side. “I decided I’d rather have you win the money than them.”

Emma worked hard to keep her jaw from dropping open in shock. “Thanks.”

“Plus, attending this party will keep Snow off my back for at least a month,” Regina muttered, gesturing back towards the house. 

“Snow?” Emma asked, frowning. “Like the cold, white stuff?”

That comment actually earned a chuckle. “No, like my half-sister you met inside. Mary Margaret.”

“Mary Margaret is your sister!” Aside from the hair color, she did not see the resemblance. “And she’s married to the lieutenant? How did that happen?”

“I’ve asked myself that question multiple times,” Regina admitted. “Snow helped me move out here. She ran into David at the diner, quite literally from what I was told, and what was supposed to be a two-day visit turned into six months. After that they moved in together and eventually got married.”

“So now your sister is married to your boss?” Emma smiled at the brunette’s obvious dislike of the situation. “Why do you call her Snow?”

“Mostly, because it annoys her,” she said an evil smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. “We have the same father but since she was the younger sibling, she got away with everything. Innocent and pure as the driven snow. The name stuck.”

“I saw you talking to her. It seems like the two of you get along okay.” It was half question. The last thing Emma wanted to do was get in the middle of sibling rivalry. 

“We have our differences and they can be vast,” Regina admitted, “but yes, after the death of our father we did become closer. She’s my only living family but she’s also my friend, and I don’t make friends easily.”

“Well, I hope one day you’ll count me as a friend,” Emma tried. “I mean you did just win me forty bucks. I need to, at least, take you out for a drink or something.”

Regina almost smiled but deflected the invitation. “What about you, Emma? Any family in the area?”

Emma pursed her lips and shook her head. “Nope, grew up in the foster system so no family to speak of.” She gestured back towards the house. “Oh, unless you count Henry, my godson.”

Regina’s eyebrows raised for more than one reason, but she stuck with what she felt would be the safer subject. “He’s your godson? I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, August thought Henry was my kid.” Emma eyed her suspiciously. “Is that what you thought, too?”

“What? No,” she rushed out a little too quickly. “He did look familiar to me, but,” she shook her head, “it wasn’t you he reminded me of.”

Emma didn’t quite believe her. “Who then?”

“Just someone I used to know,” Regina said quietly, continuing quickly before Emma could press, “Does he stay with you often?”

“No, not really.” She looked up towards his bedroom window. “I just help out his mother whenever I can, or if Henry wants to get out of the city or something.” 

Glad to have the questions away from her, Regina asked, “And what about Henry’s father?”

Emma stiffened even though she knew the question had been coming. “He died.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets as far as they would go. “It really kind of sucks since me and Henry’s mom don’t get along very well. We try to for Henry’s sake, but things kind of get awkward when Henry would rather hang out with me over her.”

Given what she knew of Emma’s record, Regina wondered if the boy’s father had been Emma’s partner. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It is what it is, right?” She jerked her thumb back towards the house needing a way to get out of the emotional mine field they’d just wandered into. “I should probably get back inside.”

“It is your party,” Regina agreed looking slightly relieved. Their conversation had officially gone way past anything they’d managed to say to each other in four months. 

“Sure you don’t want some cake?”

“Quite sure.”

“All right, well, good night then.”

“Good night, Emma.” Regina turned towards her car. 

“Hey Mills!” Emma called from the front door. “Really glad you came!”

Regina felt the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for continuing to read!  
> 


	6. Regina's Sister

“Emma!” 

Emma looked up from her half-eaten breakfast to see Mary Margaret standing next to her table. She wiped her mouth with her napkin while mumbling greetings.

Mary Margaret indicated the seat across from Emma which was empty. “May I join you?” 

Emma nodded, finally swallowing. “You here alone?”

The smaller woman smiled. “I was going to ask you the same thing.” 

“Ah, well I was having breakfast with Henry,” Emma said quietly and gave a side nod towards the bar where a group of teenagers including Henry were grouped together, “but I think I’m about to get left behind.” She leaned forwards conspiratorially. “You work at the school. Any of those girls I should be worried about?”

Mary Margaret eyed the bunch. She knew a couple of them by sight but they were all too old to be her students. She shrugged. “I think he’ll be fine. He’s a curiosity for them. A big city boy in this small little town.”

“I don’t know,” Emma said trying to watch the group without looking like she was watching the group. “I think he met that girl Ava last time he was here, and they’ve stayed in touch.”

“Young love?” 

“God, I hope not.” They leaned back from their whispered conversation as Henry approached the table. 

“Emma, is it all right if I go with Ava and her friends down to the park?”

Emma caught Mary Margaret’s slight nod of approval. “I don’t know, kid. Are you going to spend any time with me this weekend?”

“We ate dinner together last night,” he argued, “and I’ll be back by three this afternoon.” 

Emma pretended to consider the idea. “Hmmm, a night of pizza and video games?”

Henry grinned. “Sure. Anytime you want to feel like a loser I’m more than happy to oblige.”

She mock glared at him. “You’ve got my cell number?”

“Has it changed since two days ago?” The mock glare changed to real temper and he corrected his behavior accordingly. “Yes, Emma, I have your cell. I’ll call if I need anything.” 

She dismissed him with a jerk of her chin and waited until he was out the door before slumping in her seat. “Oh my God, I don’t know how people put up with teenagers.”

Mary Margaret laughed. “At least you’ve only got him for the weekend.” 

“One weekend every month or so.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I mean, he’s only been here one night and he’s completely emptied my refrigerator.” 

“He’s a growing boy,” Mary Margaret pointed out, “but enough about him. How are you? I don’t think I’ve seen you since the party and that was two months ago.”

“I’m doing good, settling into a routine. Work’s been steady but not crazy busy.”

Mary Margaret smiled over the rim of her coffee. “And how is it working with my sister?”

“Fine. Good. She’s a hard worker.” Emma picked up her own mug. “Regina is…she’s motivated.”

“Oh dear,” Mary Margaret sighed. “Is she really that bad?”

Emma laughed. “Nah, Reg is all right. She just takes a bit of getting used to is all.”

“You mean, you have to have a thick skin.” Mary Margaret looked dubious. “And do you really call her Reg?”

“Well, no, not to her face!” Emma laughed again. “Can you imagine?”

“Easily,” Mary Margaret warned. “I can assure you from past experience that the result would not be pretty. She does not care for any shortening of her name.”

“Noted.” Emma shuddered at the thought then shook her head. “In all seriousness, I’ve worked with worse. Regina is really good at her job; she cares and there are a lot of worse things a partner could be.”

As her sister, Mary Margaret knew Regina was a damn fine detective, but it was still nice to hear someone else say it. She had a gut feeling that the blonde sitting across from her could be really good for her sister. Maybe Emma could get Regina to lighten up and have some fun. 

“Tell me something about her,” Emma said, drawing Mary Margaret out of her thoughts. “I’ve been working with her for six months and I feel like I hardly know her.”

Mary Margaret waited until Granny had set a stack of pancakes down in front of her. It gave her a moment to consider Emma’s request. Regina was deeply private and had on more than one occasion been absolutely livid with Mary Margaret for spilling her alleged secrets. “Like what?” 

“I don’t know,” Emma said, considering. “Has she always been so…intense?”

“Yes,” she answered then shook her head. “No. I mean, no like not _always_ always, but for a long time now.”

“Why? What changed?”

Mary Margaret frowned at her breakfast while she fought her inner urge to simply answer. “I don’t know if it’s my place to say why.”

“Okay,” Emma drawled. She drummed her fingers on the table trying to think of something else to ask that wouldn’t cross the invisible line that she couldn’t see. “Okay, is Henry why she left my housewarming party when she did?”

Mary Margaret looked confused. “I don’t know. Why would you think that?”

“Just something she said. Right after he came downstairs is when she left. I caught up to her outside and she said Henry reminded her of someone.” 

Mary Margaret sat back in the booth and thought about it. Regina had left abruptly that afternoon. They’d been in the middle of a conversation when Regina had suddenly decided to leave. She’d just written it off as her sister being her sister. Then she thought about Henry and how he had looked standing next to the table earlier. “Oh!” 

Emma raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” 

“Daniel,” Mary Margaret breathed. “I didn’t really see it before but,” the more she thought about it the more she wondered how she had missed it, “Henry looks like Daniel.”

Not feeling the least bit more enlightened, Emma asked, “And who is Daniel?”

Mary Margaret’s shoulders slumped. They were right back to the subject Regina really didn’t like her talking about. She sighed. “Daniel grew up with us. He lived next door; he and Regina were in the same grade in school. They were high school sweethearts.”

Everything about the conversation and the past six months told Emma that Regina did not find her happily ever after with Daniel. “So, what happened? He break her heart or something?” 

Mary Margaret blinked. “He died.”

Emma could kick herself. She knew she shouldn’t have been so flippant. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“It’s all right,” Mary Margaret waved her off. 

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence where she watched Mary Margaret mindlessly push her food around her plate, Emma had to ask. “So, uhm, what happened?”

Mary Margaret looked up. “Oh.” She frowned trying to determine how much was safe to say but then just shook her head. It wasn’t like Regina hadn’t ever been mad at her before. “There was a car accident their senior year. Regina was driving. They hit some black ice. The car went off the road, flipped multiple times, landed on its roof.” She paused. “Daniel didn’t survive.”

Emma closed her eyes, easily imagining it. “What about Regina? Was she hurt?”

“She was in a coma for five days. When she woke up, her whole world had changed. She didn’t even get to attend the funeral.”

“And she hasn’t been the same since?”

“It was an accident,” Mary Margaret repeated, “but Regina, she blamed herself for a long time.”

Emma sat back, scrubbing a hand over her face. She knew the self-blame game all too well. “She probably still does.”

“Probably,” Mary Margaret admitted. 

Granny came by and refilled their coffees, frowned when she cleared their plates and saw neither woman had eaten very much. Emma shrugged, but Mary Margaret smiled and thanked the woman. “Everything was lovely, Granny. I just wasn’t as hungry as I thought I was this morning.”

The older woman seemed placated and walked off after asking if they needed anything else. Emma frowned and gave her head a little shake. Even after six months, some details of small town life were still an adjustment to make. No one in Boston would give a damn if you didn’t finish your meal.

Mary Margaret toyed with her coffee cup. “Have you ever been in love?”

Emma shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t think Regina has,” Mary Margaret confessed, “not since Daniel. I think after his death she put walls up to protect herself, and she’s never taken them down.” She took a sip of her coffee, allowing Emma’s silent response. “You know that old saying, ‘it’s better to have loved and lost’?”

“Than to have never loved at all?” Emma finished. “Yeah, what about it?”

Mary Margaret smiled sadly. “I don’t think Regina would agree.”


	7. Cutting It Short

Emma watched the clock, waited on the minute hand to move one more tick. As soon as it struck 9:10 AM, she grabbed her keys and her bag and headed towards the front of the station. Sure enough, Regina and Mrs. Williams were sitting in their usual spot and she headed straight for them. She plastered on an appropriate expression. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Williams.” She ignored Regina’s glare. 

“Detective Swan,” the woman greeted in return.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to cut your meeting short.” Emma turned towards her partner not feeling sorry at all. “We’ve got a call out.”

“Are you sure?” Regina asked, one eyebrow cocking upwards.

This time Emma’s interruption was completely legit. “Mal is already on her way. We’ve got a bit of a drive.”

Including the medical examiner in the excuse did give it more credence. Regina turned back to Mrs. Williams. “My apologies. It would seem I am needed elsewhere this morning.” 

“Of course,” Mrs. Williams said. “I hope everything is all right.”

Neither detective tried correcting that hope. Regina waited until she and Emma were beyond the space that was open to the public before she asked, “Well?”

“A hiker found a body out on one of the county trails this morning,” Emma explained briefly, keys already in hand. For her own sake, she wanted to give Regina a couple of minutes to cool off before they started driving. “Better grab your boots for this one. I’ll meet you at the car.” 

Twenty minutes later, when they hit the highway headed west, Regina broke the silence, “That’s the sixth time in eight months that you’ve interrupted my meetings with Mrs. Williams. Why?”

Emma glanced sideways at her. “We’ve got a call out.”

“I’m not talking about today.”

Emma drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She interrupted because it bothered her. The whole case bothered her. The woman’s constant harassment of Regina, even if it was done politely, bothered her. Their job was hard enough without constantly having their failures waved in front of their faces. If there was a new lead on the boy, even a really crappy lead, she’d be all over it, but she had looked over the case file. Regina hadn’t missed anything. 

“Emma?”

She sighed. “Fifteen minutes.”

Regina blinked. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Every week, I let that woman have fifteen minutes with you. Not a minute more. Once your meeting goes over fifteen minutes, I interrupt it.” She held up one hand. “Except for today. Today I only gave her ten but this was a totally legit call.”

“You _let_ her speak to me?” 

Emma rolled her eyes. She knew she should have phrased it better. “Yes, Regina. I control all aspects of her life and yours, and I _graciously_ allow her fifteen minutes of your time every week.” She hoped like hell her sarcasm was thick enough to get past Regina’s pride. 

Regina turned away from her and looked out the window, hiding her expression. “Thank you.”

Emma almost drove the car off the road. “I’m sorry, what?”

Regina sighed and shook her head. “I’m not going to repeat myself, Swan, but suffice to say the meetings are not something I enjoy.”

“But. So. Then why do you do it?” Emma blurted out. “Why do you meet with her every week?”

“She’s a woman who has had her heart broken.” She went back to looking out the window. “Giving her a few minutes of my time each week is the least I can do.”

Emma wanted to argue. She really, _really_ wanted to call bullshit on that reasoning, but she tried to be a bit more diplomatic. “Her boy’s disappearance is not your fault, Reg. You shouldn’t have to do weekly penance for it.”

Slowly, oh so very slowly, Regina turned her head back to look at her. Dark, brown eyes drilled into her. Emma felt cold fingers of doom race up her spine and she focused her concentration on the road. She knew that look; she refused to meet it head-on. She’d seen every criminal they’d questioned together crumble under that look. She glanced sideways once. Twice. She wondered if she turned on the car’s heater if that would help melt the glacial effect from Regina’s glare. 

At the three-minute mark, Regina finally spoke. “Did you just call me Reg?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for continuing to read.   
> Anybody ready to meet Mal in this universe? :)


	8. Crow's Nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's start getting into a bit of that angst I promised.

Mal was waiting for them at the trailhead. Pulling into the small parking lot, they could see she was smoking a cigarette. Emma and Regina exchanged looks; it wasn’t a good sign. Mal rarely smoked after quitting ten years earlier, but as she once told Emma, sometimes the situation called for fire. Emma drove carefully around a large limb lying on the ground and parked next to the ME’s van. As soon as she got out of the car she felt how soggy the ground was beneath her feet. The storm system that had swept through the area the night before had soaked the town and apparently done some major wind damage out in the county. 

“What have we got?” Regina asked without preamble. 

“Morning, Mal,” Emma greeted, smirking as she stood shoulder to shoulder with Regina. It wasn’t often the woman went without her heels. It was nice to be the same height for once. 

After acknowledging Emma’s greeting, Mal focused her attention on Regina. “A hiker was out early this morning, wanted to check out the storm damage to his favorite trail. He came across a lumpy sleeping bag at the foot of a tree. He went to pick it up and realized it was still occupied.” She took a long drag on the cigarette. “Probably won’t be his favorite trail anymore. The body has been out here for a while. It was pretty badly decomposed but not quite skeletal yet.” 

Emma frowned. “I don’t get it. Even in a sleeping bag, wouldn’t the animals have gotten to it by now out here?”

“If it had been on the ground the whole time? Probably.” Mal watched Regina closely. “But there are bits and pieces of rope around the sleeping bag.” 

Regina physically took a step back. “What?”

Mal nodded. “It would appear that the body had been tied up in the tree until the storm last night finally shook it loose.”

Emma looked back and forth between Mal and Regina. A body tied up in a tree in a sleeping bag. It sounded awfully familiar and tugged at her memory like something she had read once but couldn’t remember. “What am I missing?”

Regina was still staring at Mal. “The same M.O. as the Crow?”

“I’ve only done preliminaries so far, but yes.”

“But he’s dead,” Regina spit out.

Mal shrugged. “If this body has been out here as long as I think it has, this could’ve been one of his first victims.”

“Seriously?!” Emma asked again, making it clear she’d like to be included in the investigation.

“Sorry, Swan.” Regina pinched the bridge of her nose. “The Crow was a serial killer operating across Maine ten years ago. He liked to think of himself as a predator hanging the bodies of his victims up in tree branches. He’d slit the throats of his victims and then stuff the bodies in sleeping bags. He used rope to tie them to the trees.” 

“Made it a hell of lot more difficult to catch him,” Mal commented, “and the confusion it caused when a body would randomly fall out of a tree.” She affected a shudder. 

“Kind of like today and our hiker,” Emma said understanding. The drop from height probably hadn’t helped with any kind of forensics either.

“Let’s go,” Regina said, stepping onto the trail. Mal and Emma fell into step behind her. 

“So, what happened? You said he was dead, right?” Emma asked as they walked. “Did he fall out of a tree and land on his head? Did the police catch him or what?”

Mal glanced at Regina’s back. “He got shot by the police while in the residence of his next intended victim. Police found a sleeping bag and rope in the trunk of his car.” 

There was a lot not being said and it was driving Emma crazy. “Okay, well clearly, Mal, you were the medical examiner on the case.” Mal nodded. “What’s your connection, Regina?”

“I’m the cop that shot him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a forensics expert but tried to stay in the realm of plausible.


	9. Trailside Confessions

Emma rubbed the back of her neck. It had been a long damn day of standing out in the woods. It was cold and damp, and it had sporadically rained the entire time. The crime scene and its location had been a logistical nightmare. It was a public trail and even though it was located out in the county, social media had made it quickly known that law enforcement vehicles of all types were present. They’d closed off the trailhead, but any number of surrounding trails intersected and they’d had hikers stumbling across them all day. 

Then there had been the problem of collecting and transporting the evidence. After photographs, Mal had eventually had the entire sleeping bag and its remains placed in a rescue basket and hiked back to her van. That had left finding a way to climb the tree in order to photograph and collect the ropes that were still clinging to the bark. The entire area had turned into a well trampled mud slick and Emma was flat-out exhausted. 

“Unless you have any objections, we’re ready to release the scene,” she told David, tromping over to the edge of their site. “We’ve got what was possible, but most of the evidence was probably gone years ago.”

“Sounds good,” David nodded. “I’ll call it in and we can start clearing everyone out of here.” 

She looked around. “Have you seen, Regina?”

He pointed down the trail. “She was trying to get a call through to Mal.” He looked pointedly around at the cloudy sky and rolling hills surrounding them. “Reception out here sucks.”

It’s what they’d all been griping about all day. “Regina and I rode together. We’ll see you back at the office.”

Emma followed the trail he’d pointed out and found it sloping downwards, leading to a wooden footbridge that ran along the edge of a small pond. She glanced at her reflection in the still dark water as she crossed the bridge. She slowed when she spotted Regina standing near the water’s edge, looking down; she seemed to be lost in thought. “Regina?”

The woman in question looked up, her cobalt blue scarf still immaculately in place after a long day in the woods. She watched Emma cross the bridge and waited silently. She’d learned the blonde rarely required prompting. 

“Nolan is securing the scene. We can get out of here if you’re ready to go.” 

Regina exhaled a heavy breath and nodded. She met Emma back on the trail and they began to walk towards the main trailhead. 

“So, you want to talk about it?” Emma asked. 

“Talk about what?”

“How you keep your clothes so clean after eight hours at a crime scene,” Emma responded sarcastically, although she actually wouldn’t mind knowing how to do that. “This case. Your obvious deep, dark connections to what we’ve been dealing with today.” 

Regina frowned slightly as she side-stepped a puddle. “I already told you. I’m the officer that killed him.”

“Uh-huh, what else?”

“What makes you think there is anything else?”

“You mean aside from Mal waiting this morning to give you a heads-up before you walked up on the scene? Or the entire day of one word answers which even coming from you was pretty sparse,” Emma pointed out. “The signs that you were not in a good headspace today were pretty hard to miss. I’m blonde, Regina, but I’m not _that_ blonde.”

Regina appreciated Emma’s self-deprecation but kept her head down. “The Crow was one of my first cases,” she admitted. “It got personal for me, and I don’t really like to talk about it.”

Emma frowned. “Personal how?”

Regina stopped walking and faced Emma. “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ was unclear?”

Emma stepped back, holding her hands out to her side. “Sorry, I just…well, it seems like maybe you _should_ talk about it.”

“I _have_ talked about it. A lot,” she snapped. “I’ve spent many hours speaking with a trained therapist which you are not.”

“Whoa!” Emma cut her off before she could drive that train completely over her. “I was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need-” Regina cut herself off and closed her eyes, her hands fisting at her sides. She took a deep breath before opening them again. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.”

Emma didn’t believe that for a second. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” She gestured towards where the car was parked. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Emma, wait,” Regina said, surprised when the blonde actually stopped walking away and looked back at her. She closed the distance between them and tried twice to apologize but the words wouldn’t come. “I’ve already arranged to meet with Dr. Hopper tomorrow morning.”

“The chaplain?”

“He’s also a trained psychiatrist.”

“Oh,” Emma said equally surprised and relieved. “Well. Good.”

“Mal insisted,” Regina admitted. “Rather forcefully.”

A grin spread across Emma’s face but she just nodded. “All right then.” She began walking backwards towards the car. “You hungry? You want to stop and get something to eat on the way back ‘cause I am starving.”

The change of topic was welcome if unexpected. “We’re out in the county,” Regina said. “There are no places between here and town.”

“Sure there are,” Emma argued. “There’s that BBQ place inside the gas station about twenty minutes from here.”

Regina stopped again. “I do not eat at gas stations, Swan.”

Emma gave her a wide open grin. “You do tonight, Mills!”


	10. Gas Station BBQ

Regina was still attempting to bring the gas station booth up to her standard of cleanliness when Emma returned with their food. “We could sit outside if you want.”

“The dirt would probably be cleaner,” Regina remarked, moving their drinks to the side as Emma set down two Styrofoam containers, a wad of napkins, and a jumble of white plastic silverware. “I have every intention of sending you the hospital bill that will surely result from my eating here.”

“It’s not that bad,” Emma said, sliding into the booth. “I even brought you silverware so you don’t have to eat with your hands.”

“How civilized.” She reluctantly opened the Styrofoam box Emma pushed towards her and found it filled with meat, beans, a partially squished hunk of bread, and a rounded scoop of damp, shredded what-she-assumed-to-be-vegetables. “What is that?”

Emma looked to see what she was pointing at. “Coleslaw.”

“That is not coleslaw,” Regina said, poking it with her fork. “I know how to make coleslaw and that does not even resemble how it should appear.”

“It’s their version of coleslaw.” Emma shrugged. “Just ignore it. I don’t think you’re actually expected to eat it anyway.”

“Then why…” she paused mid-question to watch Emma navigate picking up half of an over-stuffed sandwich, allowing several chunks of sauce-covered meat to fall out, before she managed to take a bite. Regina knew she was staring and yet she couldn’t look away.

“What?” Emma asked after she swallowed.

“Do you _want_ to die of a coronary before you’re forty?” 

Emma rolled her eyes and snagged some napkins. “Will you just try it?”

“Fine.” 

“Thank you.” Emma took another bite of her sandwich and watched as her partner finally used the plastic silverware to separate a small piece of brisket from the rest. She waited until Regina had actually tried it before she said anything. “It’s good, right?”

Regina sipped from her bottle of water. “I will admit…I am relieved.”

“And?” Emma’s grin lit up her entire face.

“Pleasantly surprised,” Regina admitted not looking up as she began to cut off another bite. She did not need to see her partner gloating over her victory. 

After several minutes of companionable silence and eating, Emma’s hunger was finally abating. Regina finished before she did, closing the lid on her Styrofoam box that was still more than half-full and pushing it away. Emma picked up a limp French fry. “So, Reg-ina,” she corrected quickly at the dark look leveled at her from across the table, “we’ve been working together a while now. Tell me something about yourself.”

“I do not care for nicknames.”

Emma grinned at her fries. “Noted. What else?”

“What do you want to know?”

Emma sat back in the booth. “Anything?”

“You can ask,” Regina allowed then gave her a look. “I may not answer.”

“Fair enough,” Emma conceded. She considered what she wanted to ask, debated whether or not she should. That answer was easy; she knew she shouldn’t. She did anyway. “Have you ever been in love?”

Regina stiffened, her hand clenched in her lap. She took a steadying breath and swallowed tightly. “Yes,” she paused. “Once.” She reached for her water, took a sip, and set it back down. “And I believe you already knew that.”

Emma’s head cocked to the side. “Mary Margaret told you?”

“Snow was feeling guilty,” she said tightly. “As she usually does when she knows she’s said too much. Her tendencies to divulge infuriate me but no longer surprise.”

“Okay.” Emma played with a fry. “But no one since Daniel?” 

“No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

Regina looked exasperated. “I did not take a vow of chastity if that is what you are implying.”

“Good to know,” Emma smirked, popped the fry in her mouth and then closed her box and pushed it aside. If she kept it open, she’d just keep eating. “Your turn.”

“My turn for what?”

“Ask me something.”

Regina rolled her eyes. “This is ridiculous.”

“Come on,” Emma tried, leaning forward on the table. “Ask me anything. Ask me how I take my coffee. Ask what my favorite color is.”

“I know how you take your coffee, and obviously your favorite color is yellow.”

Emma frowned. “Why do you think my favorite color is yellow?” 

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but-” 

“It would be a bold choice to drive that yellow death trap around town if it weren’t,” Regina explained. 

“Hey! It has sentimental value, okay?” Emma was slightly offended on behalf of her not-quite-a-classic VW bug. 

“Wonderful,” Regina said sarcastically. “Can we leave now? I feel like we’re going to contract salmonella poisoning if we continue sitting here.”

“No.” After the crack about her car, Emma was feeling spiteful. “You have to ask me a question first.” 

“Fine,” Regina bit out. She cast around for a subject. “What’s your favorite ice cream?”

“Rocky Road,” Emma answered. “Which I’m pretty sure you already knew since you glare at me every time I come back to the office with some. Try again.” 

“ _Emma._ ”

The blonde crossed her arms over her chest and settled deeper into her seat. If Regina could incinerate anyone with just her glare, Emma would be burnt to a crisp. She was being held hostage and she swore to herself that Emma would never again be the one to drive them to a crime scene. It had been a long day and it was turning into an even longer evening when all she really wanted to do was go home, drink a nice glass of red wine, and take a hot shower. 

Emma dangled the car keys on the tip of her finger. It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Regina snapped and the one question she truly wanted the answer to but would have never asked was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Were you in love with Henry’s father?” 

Time froze. Emma felt the question hit her like a sledgehammer to the chin. Pain lanced across her chest and she realized she was holding her breath. She sucked in a breath and time began to move again. 

Regina looked horrified. 

Emma needed to move. She stood up, gathered the Styrofoam boxes and crammed them in the trash can. She threw out her empty soda cup and grabbed her untouched bottle of water. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Emma, wait-”

“No, it’s not your fault. It was my game and I was being stupid,” she said, cutting Regina off. “I’ll even answer your question just…not here. On the road will be better.” Emma spun on her heel; she needed air. She didn’t wait to see if Regina followed her out.


	11. Henry's Father

“Emma,” Regina tried again once they were in the car heading for town, “you don’t have to answer the question. It was rude and none of my business.” 

“No, it’s fine.” Emma drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. It wasn’t, but she could deal with it. She’d been dealing with it; she’d dealt with it. “It’s just, I don’t have...There’s no simple answer to that question. Did I love Neal? God, yes. Was I in love with him?” She shook her head. “No. Not like that. I had been once, maybe,” she admitted, “but I wasn’t in love with him when I lost him.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make it easier,” Regina offered.

“No,” Emma said quietly. “It doesn’t.”

Henry's father was who Regina had suspected, but there was a confession within that knowledge that Regina knew she needed to make. “I know Neal was your partner in Boston.”

Emma looked at her sharply. “You know?”

“Cops talk,” Regina admitted with a shrug. It was a well-known truth in any precinct. “I have friends in New York. They have friends in Boston. The death of an officer in the line of duty is news that travels fast.”

“Gossip concerning the circumstances travels faster.”

“Yes, it does,” Regina acknowledged then added, “Especially when the fallen officer’s partner was also injured at the scene.” 

“I wasn’t injured,” Emma growled. “I was only in the hospital for a couple of hours. It was just procedure.”

Regina nodded, accepting the blonde’s statement. She knew it had been more than procedure. Emma had been found unconscious at the scene. Her partner’s body still shielding hers. It wasn’t a detail Regina would ever press Emma to admit. 

“I’d known Neal for years,” Emma said quietly. “He was why I joined the force.” She stared out at the dark road. Neal was easier to talk about when she didn’t have to look at the other person. When she didn’t have to see their sympathy or pity. Or worse their disapproval. “He’d already been on a few years when I graduated. He pulled some strings so he could be my training officer.” She smiled thinking about him. “We did good work together.” 

When Regina didn’t offer any comment, Emma glanced at her and saw she was looking straight ahead out the front window. Emma frowned. Was the woman even listening? Probably not. She was probably busy strategizing how to get rid of an obviously fucked up partner that still had issues of guilt concerning her last partner. A partner she may or may not have been in love with. 

Regina felt Emma’s gaze on her and turned. “I’m listening,” she assured her. 

“No, whatever.” Emma shook her head. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have dropped all that on you.”

“Emma,” Regina said, a thread of steel deepening her voice, “I _asked_.”

“Because I made you.”

“Do you really think you can make me do anything I don’t want to do?” Regina’s smile was both wicked and genuine. “Now, please, continue,” she said more seriously. “If you’d like to.”

Emma was caught off guard. “You don’t want to listen to all this.”

“I want to listen to anything you want to tell me,” Regina said. She caught the bit of mischief that crept into Emma’s smile and held up a hand. “That offer is good for tonight only. Tomorrow morning, I do not want to hear about your car, your dog, or your problems with a teenage boy living in your house.”

“I don’t have a dog,” Emma grumbled, but she did talk about the other things in the office. Killian had all sorts of unhelpful advice for living with a teenage boy, and August was often able to help her repair her car. “And Henry doesn’t live with me.”

“He’s there often and with increasing frequency,” Regina pointed out. 

“That’s true.” She couldn’t really argue. “I think he just hates Boston right now. Too many memories.”

“Is that why you left Boston?” 

“Yeah, partially, I guess,” Emma admitted, “but it was more just being in the precinct. Everyone was watching me, walking on egg shells around me like I was some kind of victim they didn’t want to upset.” She shook her head. “People got quiet when I walked into a room. They were afraid to laugh and joke around me. That’s the stuff I couldn’t handle.”

“I know the feeling well,” Regina said quietly.

“Is that why you left Portland PD and came to Storybrooke?” Emma asked. “Did people treat you differently after you shot the Crow?”

“Something like that.” 

Emma considered the hesitation in the answer as they drove over the county line and past the sign welcoming them back to Storybrooke. Clearly, Portland was still a subject Regina didn't care to discuss, but that didn't mean Emma couldn't ask about other stuff. “Since I answered your question, does that mean I get to ask another?”


	12. Checking In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And. Here. We. Go.

“Hey Regina, Mrs. Williams is…” Emma trailed off as she rounded the corner and saw her partner was not at her desk like she had thought. She gestured at the empty desk with the hand that was still holding her breakfast. “Where’s Reg?”

Killian had his feet propped up on his desk with an open case file laid across his legs. “A tip came in about the identity of the body in the tree. She went out to run it down.” 

Emma set her coffee on her desk and took a bite of her bear claw. “Really? After two months? Someone finally noticed the guy was missing from the dinner table?”

“After the dozen or so years that the poor chap was strung up there,” Killian pointed out, “give or take a year for weather.”

She had to concede his point. Mal had been able to confirm the victim had been a male but that had been about it. Everything about the scene right down to the knots tied in the ropes had indicated that it was the early work of the Crow, but no identity could be assigned to the victim. They’d sent out the teeth X-rays for identification, but they hadn’t heard anything back. She slumped into her chair. “So what am I supposed to do about Mrs. Williams?”

Killian shrugged. “Let her sit out there and wait.”

Emma was tempted to throw something at him. She could push this sort of thing off on the lieutenant. “Is David in yet?”

“Not coming in today.” Killian smirked. “Guess it’s up to you, love.”

“I want it noted for the record,” Emma growled, pushing herself out of her chair, “that Regina Mills owes me for this.”

“Noted.”

Emma paused by the door leading to the front of the precinct and put on her best professional face. As soon as she opened the door, she saw Mrs. Williams look in her direction. She smiled. “Good morning, Mrs. Williams.”

The woman looked a little confused as she stood. “Detective Swan.” 

“Detective Mills got called out early this morning on another case. I’m afraid she won’t be able to meet with you today.” There. That had sounded polite. “Maybe you’d like to come back next week.” 

“Thank you for letting me know, Detective,” she said, then straightened her shoulders. “I’ll come back tomorrow and chat with her then.”

Emma bit back her first response and inclined her head instead. “Of course.” She took a few steps backwards. “I’ll be sure to let her know.” 

She’d barely gotten back inside the door when Booth walked out of the locker room. He questioned her with a look. 

“Don’t ask.”

“Okay,” he agreed easily. “Want to come out with me to a property theft?” 

“What about Jones?”

August shrugged. “He’s got reports to write.” 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I go with you, do I have to do the write-up?” He shook his head and gave her a scout’s honor pledge. “All right then. Let’s go.”

Nine hours later found Emma sitting at her desk, writing up an incident report. A simple property theft call had turned into finding a stash house of stolen property with three arrests and the reclamation of thousands of dollars of stolen goods. She’d cursed August Booth down to his grandkids for giving her so much paperwork to do on a case that wasn’t even hers. She checked the clock and noticed it was almost seven o’clock. She groaned; she was supposed to have dinner with the Nolans in a half-hour. 

“August.” She stood up from her desk and felt her back ache in protest. “I’m going to go eat dinner. You want me to come back tonight or can this be finished up tomorrow?”

He shrugged, his fingers typing away at his portion of the paperwork. “No rush. It’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“And the day after that,” Emma muttered, throwing on her coat. As she holstered her gun in her waist band she looked at Regina’s desk. “Did anybody hear from Regina today?”

Killian looked up from his pile of slowly dwindling case files. “I haven’t seen her, and I’ve been chained to this desk all day.” He cracked his neck from side to side. “She doesn’t always come back into the office when she’s out on a lead. She’ll check back in with dispatch at the end of the day.” 

Emma nodded absently. “All right, I’ll see you guys tomorrow then.”

They muttered their goodnights as she left. After a quick trip home and a five second shower to get the stash house grime off, she made it to the Nolan’s front door only fifteen minutes late. As soon as Mary Margaret opened the door, Emma knew something was wrong. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Well, probably nothing.” The pixie haired woman let her in and shut the door behind her. “Have you seen Regina today?”

“No, I was out with August all day.” Emma heard David on the phone in the other room telling someone to try again. She cocked her head and looked at Mary Margaret. “Have _you_ heard from Regina?”

Mary Margaret was twisting her hands. “No. She was supposed to join us for dinner, too. I tried to confirm with her, but I haven’t been able to reach her.”

“Let me know if you hear anything,” David said, coming into the room, disconnecting his call as he walked. He shook his head at Mary Margaret. “Dispatch hasn’t heard from her.”

“When is she supposed to check-in?” Emma asked, double checking her phone for any missed calls.

David glanced at his watch. “About an hour ago.”

“What?” She immediately hit call on Regina’s number. “David, she’s been gone all day.” 

“I know.” 

“She’s not answering her phone,” Mary Margaret offered.

Emma knew that. She knew they’d already tried calling her, but she listened to the call ring through to voice mail regardless before shutting it down. She looked at David. “Now what?”

“I sent Killian out to check her house. The uniforms are looking for her in town.” He grabbed his jacket and slipped it on turning to his wife. “Don’t worry. For all we know, she could just be out on the county roads having car trouble. You know how reception is out there.” He kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll find her.”

Emma nodded at Mary Margaret and followed David out the door. She waited until they were at their cars before she spoke. “Where do you want me?”

“The tip came in anonymously,” he said, “but they gave an address. Take Booth with you and go out there. With any luck, you’ll find a very pissed off Regina sitting there with a car that won’t start.” 

“And a phone with no signal,” Emma added. The optimism was forced. She had a bad feeling about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for continuing to read!


	13. Anonymous Tip

“Hey, I know this place,” Booth said as Emma slowed the car in front of an old farmhouse. 

“Yeah?” Emma stopped in front of the address listed in the tip without pulling into the driveway proper. There was no sign of Regina's car or the woman herself. Emma peered through the windshield at the darkened house. It looked abandoned and part of the roof on the north corner had caved in, but it had a detached garage that still appeared to be in good shape. “How’s that?”

“Unlike the rest of you transplants, I grew up in this town.” August got out of the car and looked around, nodding. “Yeah, this is the old Crocodile’s house.”

“What? Crocodile?” Emma had been checking her phone. She had one tiny bar indicating reception; she tried calling Regina’s number. The call dropped before it went through. She grabbed her portable radio and hooked it to her belt, clicking the mike. “Belle, we’re at the house. Doesn’t look like anyone is here. Going to take a look around.” At August’s nod, she said, “Booth says the house belongs to some old Crocodile?”

“Really? It’s not in his name.” Belle sounded excited. “But then that would make sense I suppose. I’ll work on it.” 

Emma grabbed her flashlight and August nodded towards the garage indicating they should check it first. He checked the far side of the garage as Emma swept behind the building. They moved towards the garage’s man-door together. It swung open easily and a sweep of their flashlights showed it was empty. Emma looked at him as they began to circle the interior of the garage. 

“All right,” Emma said, holstering her gun. “Tell me about this Crocodile.”

August ran the beam from his flashlight over shelves full of tools and half-finished projects. “He was an old gangster-mafia guy. In his younger years, he was an enforcer in Boston.” 

“And in his later years?” Emma checked the oil stains on the floor of the garage but nothing was fresh. Shattered glass littered the floor, and a breeze blew in through the busted window. 

“Money laundering,” August said. “He bought this place and all the surrounding land with cash. Said he’d been saving it up for a rainy day.” He trained his flashlight all around. It was hard to tell if anything was disturbed or just piled haphazardly. “You ready to check out the house?”

Dusting her hands off, she looked around. “Yeah, there’s nothing here.”

“We should try it again in the morning with more light.” 

Emma flinched. She hated the idea that they still wouldn’t know where Regina was by the morning. As they approached the house, they could see the back door hung open, and they cautiously made their way inside. It was pretty clear nothing but animals had lived in the place for several years. Old broken glass from the windows crunched under their boots and a few spots of innocuous graffiti were painted on the walls of the kitchen. It seemed the teenagers of Storybrooke had been bored one night. 

They made a quick circuit of the house. A loft bedroom upstairs and two bedrooms with a bathroom downstairs. The house was as empty as it felt. Emma radioed it in. 

“How does a Boston gangster end up out here in the sticks?” she asked as they walked back out of the house. 

“Felt the heat closing in, I guess,” Booth said, looking out over the field behind the house. “Came out here and lived quietly for a few years before the Feds caught up to him.” He gestured at the wide open acreage. “We should have Ruby come out here. Her dog might be able to pick up a scent.” 

Emma glanced at her phone again. She had two bars; she froze in place trying not to lose the hotspot. She punched the little green icon to call Regina’s phone again. Booth came up behind her and looked over her shoulder as the phone took an agonizingly long time to connect the call. 

The faint refrain of Black Betty echoed across the quiet night. Emma sprinted towards the front of the house. The last notes of the song ended abruptly as she approached the road. Lying on the pavement was Regina’s phone.


	14. The Crocodile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To answer my beta's question, Regina definitely has the Ram Jam version of Black Betty. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for continuing to read! Hope you are enjoying the story!

Emma leaned against the side of her car and closed her eyes; the flood lights that had been brought in were giving her a massive headache. The Crocodile property swarmed with law enforcement. County, city, and state police along with a few Feds that worked in the area were sweeping through the field. Finding just the phone might not have warranted such a response, but when Ruby’s dog had hit on Regina’s scent inside the shed and they found her blue scarf in a wad under a work bench it had set off all the alarms. 

“Here you go, love.” Killian offered her a paper cup of coffee. He leaned against the car beside her. “If anyone can take of themselves, it’s Regina. You shouldn’t fear the worst.”

“Then why the hell isn’t she back yet?” She had to force herself not to crush the coffee she was holding. “This doesn’t make any sense. I mean, why this place? Regina doesn’t have any connections to the Crocodile; I had Belle check.” She started to pace. “So why here? What does this place have to do with the Crow and a body from twelve years ago?”

“Maybe the Crocodile and the Crow knew each other,” Killian suggested. “Maybe they worked together.”

Emma’s eyes lit on him. “I need to talk to the Crocodile. Where’s David?” She glanced over all the people milling about. “Forget it. Find David, let him know where I’m headed.” 

“Emma, you’ve been up all night, you haven’t slept, and the prison is a three-hour drive from here.” 

She raised the coffee cup. “I’ll be fine. If I leave now, I’ll get there by seven and I can get in to see him by eight.”

Killian closed her car door when she tried to open it. “You don’t even know where you’re going.”

“I’ll have Belle send me the address.” She tried again but he didn’t move. “I can’t stay here and do nothing, Killian. Please.” 

He sighed and moved out of the way. “If you get tired, pull over. You’re no help to her if you kill yourself by falling asleep behind the wheel.” He closed the door after her. “And for God’s sake, eat something.”

“I will,” she promised. “I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back. Oh, and don’t leave without Booth. He rode out here with me.”

Killian mock saluted her and stepped away from the car. “Good luck, Swan.”

The ride to the Federal prison was uneventful. She stopped once to get gas and to humor Killian she got something to eat. It was horrible, tasted like cardboard, and made her think of Regina’s aversion to gas station food. As soon as the clock struck eight AM, she badged her way inside the prison and quickly explained her circumstances to the assistant warden. He was more than happy to help but warned her that he doubted she’d get the same cooperation from Robert Gold. She knew that. She did. She also knew she’d launch herself over the table and strangle the so-called Crocodile if he wasn’t straight with her. 

She waited over an hour for him to arrive, pacing the small concrete room. Her stomach hurt and she couldn’t sit still. She’d had too much coffee and not enough sleep. When the door finally opened, the slender man that walked in was a surprise. 

“Not what you were expecting?” he asked, a half grin on his face as he limped towards the seat at the table. “To what do I owe the pleasure of having a guest so early in the morning?”

She found it hard to believe this guy had been an enforcer, but then she knew looks and affected manners weren't everything. “There was an incident out at your old place in Storybrooke yesterday.”

“And you came all the way out here to tell me about it? How thoughtful.”

“A detective is missing.” 

“Just the way I like them,” he quipped. 

Emma’s knuckle cracked when she clenched her fist. “What do you know about it?”

Gold scoffed, a dark chuckle that frayed her nerves. “Only what you just told me. Nothing more.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth,” he said. “Now, why don’t you sit down and ask me something useful? Or at least, entertaining?”

Emma scrolled the screen on her phone and opened the picture Belle had sent her. She showed it to Gold. “Do you know this man?”

He peered at the image. “Hmmm, Kurt Flynn.” He looked up at her. “The Crow. Not a very attractive nickname.” His dark eyes glittered as she sat down across from him. “What about him?”

“How do you know him?”

“I don’t.”

“But you just identified him.”

“Yes, but I don’t _know_ him.” His cuffed hands played lightly across the table as he spoke. “He’s dead. You can’t _know_ someone that’s dead.” 

“Fine.” Emma ground her teeth together. “How were you able to identify the picture of Kurt Flynn?”

Gold gave her a slow smile. “Are you trying to blame your missing detective on a dead man?”

“I’m trying to figure out why an anonymous tip about a victim of the Crow would draw an officer out to your abandoned house,” Emma growled, in no mood for the inmate’s games. “Now answer the question.”

“You’re asking the wrong questions, dearie.” Gold leaned back in his seat. “You also haven’t mentioned what I get out of this little chat.”

“I’m not here to make deals, Gold.” 

“Sure you are,” he countered. “No one comes to see me without having a deal in mind. We know what you want; you want to find your friend.”

“She’s my partner,” Emma said stiffly. “What do you want?”

He studied her from beneath hooded eyes. “I want her name.” 

“Her name?!”

“Yes.” He gestured airily with his hand. “ _And_ I want to be rescheduled from first dinner to last dinner. Eating at four in the afternoon is a waste of the deplorable rations they serve here.”

“Why do you want to know my partner’s name?” Emma asked. 

“My business,” he smiled, his teeth clipping the words. “Do we have a deal?”

“No.” The story of a missing police officer would probably be in the morning news cycle. He’d know soon enough, but she found the idea of telling him distasteful. “Not until you give me your reasons.” 

He pushed back the lanky hair framing his face. “I like to know things about people,” he admitted. “Personal things.”

Emma glared at him. “And you think knowing her name is going to tell you all about her?”

His fingers played along the surface of the table. “I didn’t say the things I’d learn would be about _her_.” 

She grabbed him by the collar. “Listen here you little imp, I’m in no mood to be toyed with. Just answer the questions, or I’ll have you thrown in solitary.” 

There was a knock on the door and the supervising officer gave her a warning to back off. Emma released the hold she had on Gold and began to pace. She hadn’t lost her control like that in a long time. 

Gold didn’t settle back in his chair but instead leaned towards her. “You answer mine; I’ll answer yours.”

“Regina Mills,” she said finally. “Her name is Detective Regina Mills.” 

“Ahh… thank you.”

His thanks sent chills down her spine. “Whatever, now answer the question. How did you know Kurt Flynn?”

Gold sighed. “You’re still asking the wrong question. Asking about a dead man won’t help you. You need to think about the living.” He sat back, acting more like a professor delivering a lecture than an inmate facing three life sentences. “Now think, who would know about my house? Who would know how isolated it is? Who would know enough about the recent body you found to be able to lure your partner out there?” He folded his hands together on the table. “Then ask yourself, who would remember that Kurt Flynn was the Crow? And also know that Detective Mills is the one that killed him?” 

Emma’s head was spinning. “How do you know Regina killed the Crow?”

“Oh, it’s Regina now, is it?” he snickered then waved his hand dismissing her retort. “It was in the papers.”

“You remember a single officer’s name from ten years ago?” she asked. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Old habits die hard,” he said by way of explanation. “In my line of work it was always good to know which police officers would pull the trigger and which ones wouldn’t.” He eyed her coldly. “Do you know which of the two you are, Detective Swan?” 

She eyed him silently.

“That’s what I thought.” He pushed up to his feet. “Now don’t forget about your end of the bargain, dearie.” 

“A deal’s a deal, Gold,” Emma growled before he reached the door leading back to the cell block. “How did you know Kurt Flynn?”

The Crocodile smiled at her. “He fixed the roof of my garage one summer, him and his boy.”


	15. Time to Refuel

Emma was pretty sure she broke every traffic law in the state of Maine on her way back to Storybrooke. She cut almost a half hour off her drive time. She’d relayed the Crocodile’s information to Belle and been assured the young woman would find something. Other than Belle’s information search, there’d been little news regarding Regina. They’d found faint traces of blood in the Crocodile’s garage, but weren’t able to determine if it was Regina’s. Emma’s head had been spinning with the possibility for the two-and-a-half-hour drive back.

The precinct was crazy as she drove straight past it and slid into a parking spot at the back of Granny’s instead. Briefly, ever so briefly, she laid her head on the steering wheel. “Hang on, Reg. Please, hang on wherever the hell you are.” She sighed, scrubbed her hand over her face and slipped in through the back door of the diner. 

The diner was busier than she’d ever seen it. Lots of faces she didn’t recognize and instead of everyone sitting at the tables and booths, most seemed to be milling about. There was a long table set up near the front door with several coffee urns set up for serve yourself. She was about to make her way over to them when Granny spotted her and motioned for her to sit at the bar. She didn’t have the energy to argue and collapsed on the bar stool. 

“Freshly brewed,” Granny said and pushed a warm mug into her hands. “Give me five minutes and I’ll have a sandwich made up for you.”

“I don’t really…” she trailed off when the older woman eyed her over the top of her glasses. She conceded, “Thank you.”

Granny nodded, squeezed her forearm, and walked back to the kitchen. Emma cupped her hands around the mug and inhaled the warm vapors before taking a bracing sip. It was good and she felt the warmth travel all the way down to her gut. It relaxed a knot she’d been holding inside her chest and she felt her shoulders drop slightly from their tensed position. She peered more closely at the coffee and wondered briefly if Granny had added a little something extra to it. 

“Detective Swan.”

She groaned and inwardly flinched, barely managing to keep herself from dropping her head to the bar. She knew that voice and braced herself as best she could. “Mrs. Williams.”

The woman stood awkwardly next to her, glancing around the diner. “I was going to the station to meet with Detective Mills, but when I saw all the vehicles out front I didn’t want to bother her. Is everything all right?”

Emma frowned at her; she didn’t have the time or patience for this. “Regina is missing.” 

“Oh my God, that’s terrible.” 

Emma straightened away from the bar, something about the reaction didn’t sit right with her. How was this news a surprise to anyone at this point? “Yeah…uh-”

The mother took a step closer to Emma. “Would you mind stepping outside with me, just for a minute?” She indicated the back door. “There’s something I’d like to discuss wi-” 

“Emma!” Mary Margaret spotted her from across the diner and made her way across the floor, wrapping Emma in a hug as soon as she was close enough. “David said you were gone, that you were following up a lead. Did you find out anything?”

Nothing she wanted to elaborate on outside of the precinct. “Uhm, Mary Margaret, this is Mrs. Williams,” she fumbled, using the introduction to buy herself time. 

“Oh.” Mary Margaret blinked through a moment of confusion not having realized Emma had been talking to anyone. “Hi.” She looked between the two women and finally seemed to find her footing. “You’re Tamara, right?”

The woman in question blinked. “Yes, how did you-”

Emma’s head jerked back. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“Regina has told me all about you.” Mary Margaret managed a sad smile. “I’m so sorry about your little boy.”

Tamara nodded tightly. “Thanks.” Her eyes narrowed. “You must be Regina’s sister.”

“Yes, I am.”

“She told me a lot about you, too.”

“O-kay,” Emma got to her feet, putting herself slightly in front of Mary Margaret. She was pretty sure Regina hadn’t said much of anything to either woman about the other. Granny’s arrival was timely, and Emma grabbed the bag she set on the counter. “I’ve really got to get back to the station.” She looked pointedly at Mary Margaret. “Are you coming?” 

“Oh, uhm, sure, let me get my coat.” She smiled shyly at Tamara and hurried off. 

“I’m sure she’ll turn up somewhere,” Tamara offered into the awkward silence. “Regina, I mean.”

“Yeah, got it,” Emma said, pulling out her wallet to pay Granny. The old woman glared at her and Emma put her money away. Mary Margaret reappeared at her side; Emma pushed her towards the back door. She gave a curt nod to Tamara. “Mrs. Williams.”

Once outside, Emma walked towards the driver’s side of her car. “Regina didn’t tell you about Mrs. Williams.”

“No, but David did.” Mary Margaret slid into the passenger seat and frowned. “I don’t think she liked me.”

“No.” Emma started the car, her eyes still on the door to the diner. “I don’t think she did.”


	16. Dragon's Lair

Emma dropped Mary Margaret off in David’s office and threaded her way through milling officers to Killian’s desk. She suggested he take a long, hard look into the whereabouts of Tamara Williams at the time of Regina’s disappearance. His reminder that the grieving mother had been in the station, talking to Emma when Regina had gone out to check the tip had not helped her headache. 

Still clutching her lunch, she worked her way towards The Shop. When she got the door opened and slid inside, she took a step back at the amount of activity going on in the narrow room. “Whoa.”

Belle’s head snapped up from the study of one of her computer monitors. Two other people crammed into the small space continued typing away. Radios squawked and beeped; Emma heard snippets of traffic on, at least, two different channels. The TVs were tuned to two different news stations but were thankfully muted. A list of phone numbers and corresponding names scrolled on one screen while video footage from a patrol car played on another. 

“Is that for me?” Belle asked, pointing at the bag from Granny’s. 

“Oh.” Emma flushed. “Uhm, yeah, you can have it.” She tried to push it into Belle’s hands. 

Belle pushed it back. “Oh no, if Granny made that food for you, you better eat it. If you don’t, she’ll know. Don’t ask me how, but she will.” 

Emma made a mental note to tell Mary Margaret to bring the analysts some food. They probably hadn’t left their little tech cave since the call went out. “Did you find anything on Kurt Flynn having a son?”

Belle’s expression darkened. “Yes, but nothing helpful.” She turned back to her desk and grabbed a folder. “He had a son. Owen.” She handed Emma a picture of a small boy, a third grade school photo by the looks of it. “Last known picture.”

Emma looked up from the smiling face. “Is he dead?”

“There’s no record of him dying,” Belle said, “but aside from a few class photos I managed to find in the Storybrooke archives, there’s no record of him period.” She slumped against the door. “His parents divorced around the time he should’ve been entering fourth grade and records for him just stopped.”

“So, what he just moved away?” 

“Probably,” Belle said, “but I can’t find a record of Owen Flynn enrolling in school anywhere else in the country. According to his date of birth, he should be twenty-six, but I can’t find a record for him anywhere. No property, no credit cards, no criminal record for anyone by that name, not even a speeding ticket.”

Emma thumped the back of her head against the wall. “A fucking ghost.” 

“We’ll keep looking, Emma,” Belle tried to assure her. “We’ll find something, I promise.”

Opening the door, Emma slid back out into the bay and ran right into David. “Hey, whoa there.” He caught her by the shoulders. “They told me you were back. How’d it go?”

“Fine.” She’d already told him everything over the phone on her drive back. She chucked a thumb towards the door to The Shop. “Somebody needs to get the geeks some food.”

He looked down at the bag she held loosely in her hand. “I’ll tell Mary Margaret. It’ll give her something to do.” 

“Make sure she doesn’t go alone,” Emma said cautiously. 

He frowned but nodded then looked more closely at her face. “You need to get some sleep.”

“Not yet,” she said slipping out from under his hands. “I need to go talk to the Dragon first.” 

His frown deepened. “Why?”

“I need a history lesson.” 

As Emma drove to the hospital, she demolished the two grilled cheese sandwiches Granny had packed for her. They weren’t quite hot anymore but the old woman had wrapped them in foil. They were still warm enough to be enjoyed if she’d taken the time to taste them. She pocketed the apple that had also been in the bag and badged her way past the ER desk, making her way down to the morgue. 

She found Mal standing on the loading dock, smoking a cigarette. The woman was only a few years older than Emma but her eyes always seemed as though they had seen too many lifetimes. She exhaled a plume of smoke. “You wouldn’t be down here if you’d found her.”

“No,” Emma said, “I would’ve called immediately.”

Mal studied the cigarette clenched between her fingers. “If the worst happens, I don’t want her brought here.” She looked over her shoulder at Emma. “But I don’t trust her to be taken anywhere else either.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Emma swallowed tightly. “We’re going to find her. She’s going to be fine.”

“Good.” Mal flicked the cigarette away. “Now, what brings you to my lair?”

“I need you to tell me about Regina and the Crow.”

Mal’s chin raised to an imperial angle, her blue eyes flashing as she studied Emma. Finally, she drawled, “All right.”


	17. History Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember those tagged warnings about violence...references to those in this chapter.

Emma’s nose scrunched as Mal switched to a vape inside her office. Mal rolled her eyes and switched on the overhead ventilation designed to take the smells of the morgue external. “So, what do you know?”

“No,” Emma said, shaking her head. “Just start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

" _That_ would be a major breach of trust." Mal rubbed her thumb over the tips of her nails. “Regina is not exactly open about her past, nor does she trust easily. You know this.”

“I think there’s a connection between what happened then and what’s happening now,” Emma explained. Mal did not look convinced. “I’m trying to save her life, Mal; I think she’ll understand.” 

“Then you don’t know Regina at all,” Mal cracked, then waved off Emma’s frustration. “However, I’d rather she be mad at me for the next decade then dead.”

Emma’s hand was a shaking claw as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _Please_ , Mal just…tell me.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll start at the important part.” 

“Just start at the beginning.”

“No, darling, in this instance the beginning doesn’t matter. That’s not where the trouble started.” Mal leaned back in her chair. “The Crow, or as he was known then, ‘The Unknown Suspect,’ had been killing people up and down the east coast of Maine for eighteen months. I know because I was working as the medical examiner for Cumberland county. More than a few of his victims came through my doors.” She exhaled heavily. “A few precincts had names for him, some repeatable, some not, but nothing that had caught the news cycle. Enter Officer Regina Mills.

“Regina was finishing up her first year as an officer with the Portland PD. There was a press conference held about one of the murders, and she was on scene helping provide security. Once the press conference ended, there were lots of people milling around. Several officers, including Regina, went to get coffee.” Mal toyed with the vape held between her fingers. “The officers were perhaps a bit indiscreet with their discussion of the killer and his antics of leaving the bodies strung up in trees. They referred to him as the Crow.”

“Somebody overheard them talking,” Emma guessed. 

Mal nodded. “A rather overzealous young reporter desperate for a headline. Next thing you know, every news outlet in the area was referring to the killer as the Crow. As you can imagine for an egotistical son-of-a-bitch like Kurt Flynn, an uninspired moniker such as the Crow wasn’t very satisfying.”

Emma leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “What did he do?”

“He found that overzealous young reporter that had first broken the news of his name. He kidnapped the young man, tortured him, told him all the nasty things he was going to do to him for giving him such a stupid name. By that point the reporter was scared out of his mind, had probably pissed himself, and was more than willing to throw anyone else under the bus to save his own skin.” 

“He told the Crow it had been Regina,” Emma guessed. 

“His version of the story is that he said there were several officers, but in a police-blue sea of tall, Caucasian males, Regina sticks out. There were plenty of cameras that day, tons of news footage. I know because I went back and reviewed it myself,” Mal admitted. “Regina may have been in the background, but the camera loves her. She was standing near the stage, or escorting the mayor, or kneeling down talking to a small child. Once you started looking for her in the news, she was easy to find, and the Crow became obsessed with her.”

Emma leaned back, thinking about that day in the woods when she’d found Regina staring blankly at the water. “She told me the case became personal for her.”

“ _Personal_ barely begins to cover it. Regina became the Crow’s next intended victim.” Mal exhaled a steady stream of vapor, watching it curl upwards towards the vent. “The bastard broke into her home while she was asleep. It was the middle of the night, she’d worked a double, and he was very good at what he did. He disabled the alarm and got inside without making a sound. By a stroke of luck, she woke up when he was standing at the foot of her bed.” 

Emma’s heart was racing. “What woke her up?”

“Instinct?” Mal shrugged. “Whatever it was, it saved her life. He already had a rag soaked in chloroform in his hand. If he’d gotten that on her, she’d have woken up in a tree like everyone else. Or worse.” Emma got to her feet and began to pace; Mal watched her from beneath hooded eyes. “Regina slept with a gun under her pillow, but unfortunately he knew that. She reached for it; he lunged for her. Afterwards, she couldn’t remember a lot of the specific details, but the two of them had a knockdown, drag out fight.”

“How so?”

“There wasn’t a piece of furniture in that room that wasn’t busted up, knocked over, or broken. The master bathroom had Regina's blood on the shattered mirror and his blood on the broken shower doors.”

Emma closed her eyes, trying not to imagine the scene she could so easily see. “The scar on her upper lip?”

Mal nodded. “Plus a whole host of other ones that no one ever sees.”

“But you saw her that night?”

Haunted eyes met Emma’s. “As soon as I arrived on scene, I knew it was bad. Everyone was relieved to see me. They walked me in and right past the dead body at the foot of the stairs. Nobody gave a damn about him. It was Regina they wanted me to deal with.” She cracked a sad smile. “All these big, burly men that wanted to help her, protect her, do something, _anything_ and yet all their muscles couldn’t help them with this problem.”

“She wouldn’t let them get near her?” Emma asked.

“And she still had her gun,” Mal said a shaky laugh escaping. “She was about as busted up as you could be and still be conscious. She couldn’t tell up from down and a man’s voice was the last thing she trusted at that moment. I'm sure her ears were ringing, but I talked softly to her. As I got closer to her, I could tell she was having a hard time seeing clearly. When she finally recognized me and whispered my name…I almost lost it.” 

Emma stared up at the ceiling. Mal’s voice breaking had almost released the flood gates and Emma blinked back the tears gathering in her eyes.

Mal cleared her throat after a minute. “Based on the examination I did on his body, Regina gave as good as she got that night. By her own admission though, some many months later and after several glasses of scotch, she admitted that bastard had been winning the fight. Right up until that moment when he threw her across the room and she just happened to come up holding the gun.” Mal tried to shake off the memories. “Anyway, she eventually gave me her gun and I managed to get her up and walking. We got a coat over her and got her down to the ambulance. Until the moment she passed out, she never once let go of my hand.”

“Fuck,” Emma breathed, sinking back into the chair she had vacated. 

“Yeah.” Mal threw down the vape, picked up her lighter and cigarettes, and strode out of the office. 

Emma let her go. The woman needed her space and Emma didn’t mind having a few minutes to collect herself either. Those were the kinds of details that had not been in the official report. A lot had been redacted, but now she at least understood how the Crow had sustained so many injuries. 

“So tell me, Swan,” Mal snapped, walking back into her office minutes later. “How does any of that help you find Regina?”

In the literal sense of things, it didn’t. It helped her though. She’d known Regina wouldn’t have been easily subdued in a fair fight. Had her kidnapper known that as well? “Was there ever any indication that someone else was in the house that night?”

Mal almost snapped, but the question intrigued her. “You think the Crow was working with someone?”

Emma sighed. “I think Kurt Flynn had a son that was never mentioned in any of the reporting. A son that spent at least one summer here in Storybrooke with dear old dad. A son that would be a man now; a man that grew up with a serial killer for a father.”

“A son that maybe picked up where the father left off?” Mal suggested. 

“Maybe.”

“Shit.” 

Emma nodded and then they both jumped when the phone rang. Mal snatched it up before the jarring sound could ring again. “What? Yes, she’s here with me. What? Calm down, Belle, and speak slowly.”

Emma was on her feet, barely keeping herself from running out the door. Mal held up one finger, begging her to wait as she finished the conversation. She hung up the phone. “They found Regina’s car.”


	18. Causing a Scene

When Emma arrived at the farm house, August was waiting for her. She could see the back of Regina’s Mercedes, trunk open, parked in the garage. The flash of a camera made her flinch as she saw the evidence technician lean in and take another picture of something within the trunk. 

“She’s not here, Emma,” August said quickly, stepping in front of her before she could move past him. “Calm down.”

She stared past him as another forensic tech ducked in and out of the back seat of Regina’s prized Mercedes. She wanted to see inside the car for herself; she _needed_ to see. The camera flash went off again and she watched the tech remove an evidence marker from within the trunk. “What’s in the trunk?” 

Booth hesitated. 

“What is he taking pictures of, August?!” She demanded and saw a few people turn their direction at her raised voice.

“There are a few traces of blood-” Emma swore and tried to move past him. He moved with her and held up his hands. “It’s not what you think. They’re small, and they’re kind of in odd places. One is a perfect fingerprint up by the speakers. We think Regina may have left them on purpose for us to find.”

That drew Emma up short. “What?”

“We don’t know for sure,” August started. “Samples will have to be sent to the lab. We need to compare the print, but think about it, Emma. How many people would have the wherewithal to think of doing something like that?”

Even if she agreed with his point, she didn’t have to admit it. “Did they find anything else?” August hesitated again. She almost grabbed him by his jacket so she could shake him. “Damn it, August, tell me!”

He exhaled. “Her purse and coat were in the trunk. There were traces of blood on them as well.” 

Emma pushed past him, her shoulder thumping hard against his but she noticed he didn’t try to stop her. He left that to David who met her near the entrance to the garage. “You’re not going in there, Swan, so calm down.”

“Let me by, David,” she growled.

“No. Now calm. Down.” 

“Regina was bleeding, trapped in the trunk of her own damn car, and you want me to calm down?!” It didn’t help that she could see the evidence bags that contained Regina’s purse and coat lying on the pavement of the garage. 

“Hey!” David snapped at her, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You are not the only one here that cares about Regina!”

His words broke off in her chest like a cheaply made blade. She held his gaze for a long moment before jerking free and stalking away. More than one person watched her go and a few others hurriedly went back to what they had been doing. Emma noticed; she just didn't care. She did care about David though and needed to get away from him before she said something she’d really regret. She reached the edge of the woods and began to pace. Regina would’ve already slapped her upside the head for being so crazy, and especially to David. He was the one out here that was actually related to Regina even if it was only by marriage. What claim did Emma have except that of a loose partnership?

Exhaustion rolled over her and she stood staring into the ever-darkening forest that surrounded the house. They were going to have to go in there and search. It would be as fruitless as the search had been at the Crocodile’s place; she knew Regina wasn’t here. She couldn’t say how she knew it but she did. 

Emma felt more than saw Killian approach and stand at her side. "I'm going to have to apologize to David."

Killian shrugged but didn’t berate her for which she was grateful. She glanced at him and saw dark smudges under his eyes. It reminded her how tired she was. “What now?”

“The county team is finishing up the search inside the house. No one’s home and it hasn’t been lived in, but they were giving it a thorough once over.” He side-eyed her in much the same manner that she had appraised him. “And then when the state boys get here, I suppose we’ll go tromping about in the woods.”

She nodded, her soul sagging at the idea. “Do you think we’ll find anything?”

“No. Not here.” He caught her look of surprise and shrugged. “It’s too quiet here, too still. Doesn’t feel right.”

“I thought it was just me,” she admitted. She looked around at the expansive property. Two deputies with slung weapons stood at the steps leading up to the main house. “How’d we even find this place?”

“Ah, nosy neighbor,” Killian said, pointing up the small private street. “Older lady with not much else going on in her life. She saw two sets of headlights turn down the road last night and only one set departed. She didn’t think too much of it until she heard the news reports about Regina. She said this house has been abandoned for years ever since the owner died.”

“I don’t suppose she got a description of the other car.”

“Now you’re just being optimistic, Swan.”

Emma continued staring around the property and how isolated the area was. It was the perfect place really to commit a crime with the exception of the old lady. “We weren’t supposed to find this place, Killian.”

“No, we were not,” he agreed. “This was a mistake on his part.” He bumped her shoulder with his own. “Don’t think too hard on it, Belle is already in full research mode.” 

Four hours later, Emma was ready to pull her hair out. She sat on the hood of David’s cruiser and watched three flashlight beams dance through the woods. Instead of everyone blindly wandering through the woods, the decision had been made to let the K-9s do the leg work. If they caught a scent, then everyone would converge. The occasional bark or growl made everyone hold their collective breath, but so far they’d found nothing useful. 

She watched warily as David approached and tapped August who was sprawled next to her. He sat up. “Any news?”

David shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his face. “No.” He looked at Emma. “Swan, I want you to go home. Get something to eat, take a shower-”

“What? No.”

“-get a few hours of sleep,” he said, talking over her. “I mean it this time.”

She slid off the car and onto her feet. “Lieutenant, I’m fine.” 

“No, you aren’t. You haven’t slept in two days. We don’t need you here right now, but we will need you tomorrow. So go home and get some sleep.” He glanced meaningfully at August before walking away.

Emma made to follow him and got brought up short by August’s hand on her arm, pulling her back. “Easy, Swan. He’s right. You need to take a break.”

“What about you, huh? Or Killian? I don’t see any of you taking breaks.”

August looked frustrated. “All of us slept last night when we finished up at Gold’s place. You didn’t.”

She bit off the comment she’d been about to make regarding sexism in the workplace. “Oh.”

He slung an arm around her shoulder and began walking her towards her car. “Seriously, go home, take a shower. We’ll call you if we hear anything.” 

She let him open the car door for her. “I think I’d rather just sleep at the station.” 

August shrugged. “Then do that. Just get some sleep.” He pushed her gently into the car. “ _After_ , you take a shower.” 

His words finally penetrated her fogged brain and she glared at him. “Are you suggesting I stink?”

He pushed the door closed. “Not _suggesting_ , sweetheart.” He thumped the roof of the car. “Now, go.”


	19. Crows, Dragons, and Crocodiles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A smattering of violence in this chapter...

Emma did what she was told for once and went home, showered and changed clothes. She checked her phone obsessively for any missed messages or calls while she fixed a large pot of pasta and drank scalding hot coffee. After she tossed in some seasoned chicken and sauce, she carried the pot out to her car. The few people that were in the station appreciated the hot meal. 

Ironically, she had to force Belle to step away from her computer and get something to eat. The Shop was beginning to smell a little ripe, but Belle insisted she’d slept. The other two analysts had gone home for the night and were due back in the morning. 

“Take the cot by the west wall,” Belle said, a bowl of pasta in one hand and a large energy drink in the other. “It’s got the fewest lumps. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.” 

“Wake me up as soon as you find anything,” Emma told her. Belle nodded before slipping back inside the Shop. The duty officer nodded when Emma gestured she’d be in the back. 

While her body was demanding she rest, she really didn’t want to sleep; she knew it wouldn’t go well. Emma laid on the cot, staring up at the ceiling. Her thoughts traitorously drifted to Regina. It was past midnight. It was cold outside. In a few hours they’d hit the forty-eight hour mark that Regina had been missing. The investigation would go downhill from there. She rubbed at her eyes; they felt gritty and hot. She wondered if she had any eye drops in her locker. As much as she didn’t want to sleep, she also didn’t want to get up and go look for any. 

“Emma?”

She groaned when she heard her name called. 

“Emma? You back there?”

Her body protested when she sat up reminding her exactly how tired she was. “Yeah, just a second.” She slipped her boots back on but didn’t bother tying them. She was still scrubbing a hand over her face when she walked back into the squad bay. “Did you find something?”

No one answered her. No one was in the squad bay. Emma blinked and looked out front to the duty desk only to find it empty too. Where the hell did everyone go? She heard voices coming from inside the Shop and walked over to it. “Hey, Belle, where did-”

The Shop was as empty as the squad bay. The voices she heard was one of the flatscreen TVs blaring the evening news. Two news anchors sat behind the desk. “It’s been forty-eight hours and local Storybrooke police detective Regina Mills is still missing.”

The man shook his head. “And you know, after the first forty-eight hours, the chances of finding her alive decrease severely.” 

“If she’s not dead already,” the woman chimed in. 

Emma stumbled backwards, the door to the Shop closing on her face. 

“Don't you have someplace else to be?” 

Emma spun around and saw Robert Gold sitting in Regina’s chair. He rolled a red apple across the top of the desk. Emma glanced around the empty squad bay. “What the hell?”

“She’s waiting for you, dearie.”

She stared at Gold as he took a single bite of the apple before tossing it over his shoulder. She never saw where the apple landed because movement by the door caught her eye. For a second there was nothing, then she heard high heels snapping against the floor as whoever it was walked away. Only one person in their office wore high heels. Emma rushed for the door leading out to the public part of the station. She burst through the doors, but the only person in sight was Mrs. Williams, sitting in her usual spot. Emma pulled up short, still looking around. “Have you seen Reg…Detective Mills?”

Tamara shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll turn up somewhere.” 

A bird cawed and Emma whirled back around to see Mal leaning against the wall by the notice board. A crow was perched on her shoulder. She lit a cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke towards Emma. “You shouldn’t be here if you haven’t found her.”

“I’m…I’m trying, Mal.” The medical examiner looked unimpressed and fed a piece of apple to the black bird that was eyeing Emma. 

“Emma!” Mary Margaret burst in through the front door. She grabbed Emma by the hand. “You’re running out of time.”

The woman’s plea did not fall on deaf ears, but as the front door closed, Emma caught a glimpse of cobalt blue. She pushed Mary Margaret out of the way and wrenched the door back open, rushing outside. She heard the clip of heels and saw a flick of brunette hair across the street before it rounded the corner out of sight. “Regina!”

Emma rushed after her, running out into the street only to find the town deserted. There was no one in sight. She spun on the spot looking every which way, but she was alone. 

“Don’t worry, I got your back.”

Her blood ran cold and she froze. Steam rose up from the street and swirled around her ankles. She felt his presence at her back. “No…” 

He chuckled. “I’m not going to leave you alone in this place.”

The street was gone and she was back in the warehouse. That damnable warehouse with its huge, hissing steam pipes that towered on both sides of her. Emma brought her gun up. “Neal?”

“Yeah?” he answered, standing behind her.

She shuddered. “We should go back.” 

“Why?” he laughed easily. “You creeped out by this place, Swan?” 

Yes. She _knew_ what happened here. She took several steps forward and felt Neal at her shoulder moving with her. “Did you call it in?” 

“Yeah, I called it in,” Neal said, his voice the same relaxed, laid back tone he always had. “We’ve got back-up on the way.”

His answer was the same every time. Fear crawled its way up her throat. They continued moving forward, towards the inevitable. Emma tried again, “Let’s go back and wait for the other unit to arrive.”

“Relax, Emma," he said. "There’s nobody here. It was probably just some stupid kids messing around.”

The smell of wet paint hit her hard. Then she saw the brightly colored scrawl on the pipes. The kids had been tagging the warehouse with graffiti. Large crows were painted on the old metal pipes. That was new. She lowered her gun to her side. “Looks like you were right, just some dumb kids.” 

She turned to face him, to point out the empty cans of paint that littered the floor, when shots rang out. She saw Neal shudder, felt a hot spray of liquid hit her face, and he collapsed against her. “Neal!”

She tried to catch him, but she was off-balance and his weight carried them both to the ground, knocking the air from her lungs. The back of her head smacked against the concrete floor, and she felt her teeth click together. The high rooftop of the warehouse shifted in and out of focus as the afternoon sun streamed in through a broken window. She tried to blink away the spots in her vision, tried to move, but Neal was dead weight on top of her, pinning her down. She heard footsteps getting closer, heard the scrape of metal against stone as someone picked up the gun she had dropped. A dark shadow leaned over her, blocking out the light above her. The shadow moved back and then aimed her own gun at her face. She stared up the barrel and waited for the bullet that would kill her. 

The shot rang out. 

Emma gasped for breath and barely managed to stifle a scream when she opened her eyes and saw a shadow moving over her. She shoved it away, kicked out with her feet and scrambled backwards until she was off the cot and her back hit the wall.

“Emma! Emma, it’s just me. It’s Belle.” The young woman held out her hands even as she stayed back. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t wake you. I tried…” 

Emma looked around the room; she was back in the station. She felt the burn of fear flood outwards from her chest. “Belle?”

The young woman nodded, and Emma’s legs gave out as she sank down to the floor. She buried her face in her hands, felt the dampness on her cheeks that told her she’d been crying. Pulling her knees up to her chest, Emma wrapped her arms around them and shuddered. She tried to count to twenty and only made it to seven. She dug her fingernails into her legs. She tried again and made it to twelve. She banged her forehead against her knees; she'd never seen the man that shot Neal. She counted again and made it to twenty. Her heart began to slow from its thundering, racing pace. The man had never picked up her weapon and aimed it at her. She started at twenty and began to count backwards. Back-up had arrived and caught the mentally deranged man before he'd come anywhere near her. Her breathing was almost back to normal. She was safe. Her shirt was clingy, and she felt her sweat-soaked body already beginning to cool. So much for having taken a shower. 

“Are you all right?”

And now she had to explain herself; the thought made her stomach hurt. Emma raised her head from her knees and slicked her hair back with shaking hands. She licked her lips to try and give them some moisture. “Nightmare,” she managed.

Belle actually chuckled. “Yeah, I caught that much.” 

Emma appreciated the reaction. It was better than fear or pity. “They tend to happen when I’m under a lot of stress.” She slowly unfolded her legs, stretching them out in front of her. “I didn’t hit you, did I?” 

“You tried.” Belle winked at Emma’s horrified expression. “Don’t worry, Swan. I’m tougher than I look.” She offered her hand to help Emma up. “You’re not the first person I’ve been around that had PTSD.”

Oh. Well, okay then. Emma accepted her hand and pulled herself up. “How long was I out?” 

“Almost six hours,” Belle said then grinned. “Emma, I found the Crow’s connection to the farmhouse, and I think I know where he’s keeping Regina.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for continuing to read!!


	20. Closing In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember those tagged warnings about torture and violence...

As they waited a block away for the signal that everyone was in place and ready to move on the docks, Emma mentally reviewed everything Belle had told them. Kurt Gregory Flynn, the Crow, had a son - Owen. Sometime around Owen’s tenth birthday, his parents got divorced. Afterwards, Owen primarily lived with his mother, and they moved to New Jersey where she enrolled Owen in school under her maiden name. Three years later, Owen’s mother died and he went back to live with his grandmother in Storybrooke, Maine. 

Owen’s grandmother was very well-off. Before retiring, she and her late husband had owned or operated half the businesses in Storybrooke, including the largest cannery in the state. She’d sold off most of her businesses years earlier, but she’d been able to easily provide for her grandson. Unfortunately, when Owen moved back to Maine, his father also reentered his life and became a major influence on him. It was suspected but never proven that Owen’s mother, Clarissa Mendell, may have been the Crow’s first victim. 

When the news broke about the Crow’s death and his identity was revealed, no next of kin came forward to collect the body. Owen Flynn, who would’ve been sixteen at the time, couldn’t be found. Five years later, when Owen’s grandmother died, her entire estate was left to her only surviving relative, a young man living in New Jersey that went by the name Greg Mendell. 

The same estate where they’d found Regina’s car. 

Greg _fucking_ Mendell. 

When Belle had passed out copies of his driver’s license photo, Emma had never had a stronger urge to punch someone in the face. She wanted to find Greg Mendell; she wanted to hurt him. And if he’d hurt Regina…

“One minute!” 

That was the signal to get in place. Emma got out of her car and hurried to the side of the cannery; she slid in behind Killian and felt August at her back. She forced herself to relax the white-knuckle grip she had on her pistol. David listened to the radio, coordinating with other teams on different parts of the docks. He gave the signal and they moved forward, swarming inside the cannery.

They paired off and swept quickly in teams through the brightly lit, stainless steel cannery. Its operating machinery whirring loudly as workers stopped to watch them rush by. More than a few people rushed out after they had passed by, fearing the worst. But their entire team converged at the loading docks at the back of the building and had found nothing. 

“Cannery secure, proceeding to docks,” David radioed it in. He nodded to his gathered officers and they began to move out again. 

Emma heard a dog bark and was relieved to know that Ruby was on the scene. The port area they needed to cover was vast and the K-9 might pick up on something before the rest of them did. There were rows upon rows of stacked shipping containers. At the far end of the pier was a dilapidated building that Emma had never noticed. She stared at it, her heart lodged somewhere in her throat. 

August came up beside her and saw where she was looking. “That's the old cannery.” 

“It wasn’t on the map,” she said then looked at him. “Our guy likes abandoned places.”

He nodded and keyed the mike on his radio. “Booth to Nolan.” He tried twice to tell the lieutenant where they were going. “Shit. There’s so much interference here the radios are crap.” 

“Go tell him,” Emma said. “I’ll wait for you by the door.”

August nodded then grabbed the shoulder strap of her protective vest, anchoring her. “ _Wait_ for me.”

She nodded. “I will. I promise.” 

Emma jogged down the pier towards the cannery; the closer she got to the building the more detail she could see. Busted windows, rusted metal, and faded writing that spelled out Storybrooke Cannery Est. 1894. It was louder at this end of the pier; all of the new cannery’s motors were hidden behind the building forcing the production noise away from the town. A run-down fence surrounded the property, but it didn’t take Emma long to find the gate was broken enough to squeeze through. She slipped inside the fence and made her way along the side of the building until she found a sliding door at the back corner of the building that was already open. She did a quick glance inside and then doubled back to help direct August through the gate. 

August was breathing heavily when he reached her. She gave him a count of ten to catch his breath before leading the way to the door. When they reached it, August radioed in that they were entering the building; no one acknowledged. They paused inside the door, allowing their eyes to adjust. Unlike the modern cannery full of gleaming stainless steel and computerized monitors, the old building was built with concrete walls and wooden plank floors. Rusted equipment spanned the entire floor. It was eerily reminiscent of the warehouse from Emma's nightmares, and she concentrated on the smell of old fish that permeated the place to anchor herself to the present. 

August tapped her shoulder and moved past her, further into the factory. She fell in behind him, sweeping right and back as he covered left and front. The old building still had electricity and the few light fixtures above them that weren’t broken burned dully, occasionally hazing out and flickering. When they reached the middle of the production floor, they realized it split into two levels. 

“You hear that?” August asked quietly. 

There was a murmuring sound echoing off the walls. Emma listened and realized she could discern voices but they were too distorted to understand. “Where are they coming from?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell.” 

“Call it in. Tell David to get more people out here.” She pulled out her phone to see if it would work any better than the radio, but there was no signal. She quickly punched out a text and hit send.

The lights above them dimmed and a scream rent the air. It cut off quickly, too quickly and Emma spun on the spot, trying to locate anything that would indicate a direction. August headed for the stairs leading down, pointing for her to go up. She could vaguely hear him calling for all units to converge on their location as she rushed up the steps. 

As soon as she turned the corner, she could hear a man’s muffled voice echoing along the corridor. She was getting closer but the sound was still distorted. She keyed her radio. “Booth. Upstairs. Control offices.” 

She turned left and begin slowly making her way down the corridor. “Come on. Come on, you bastard.” 

The lights flickered and another scream sounded behind her. Emma spun around, and heard a man’s voice raging, the pained scream cut off but the lights stayed dim. She hit the emergency call signal on her radio. There were only two rooms left ahead of her and a connecting hallway. She was still ten feet away when she heard the man’s voice clear as crystal coming from the second room.

“Now, you're never going to hurt anyone, ever again.” 

Emma spun around the door frame, gun up, as Regina’s screams tore into her again. The brunette’s body arched upwards from a gurney as she convulsed and thrashed against restraints. 

"SHUT IT DOWN!!"

Greg Mendell raised his hands and stumbled away from a machine that was sending electric current straight into Regina. He grinned as Regina’s seizing muscles cut off her scream, the cords and veins of her neck straining against a sustained grunt of pain. Emma shifted her aim and fired three shots into the machine, shutting it down. Regina collapsed boneless against the gurney, a marionette whose strings had just been cut. "Regina!"

The moment of inattention was just enough for Mendell to slip out the side door and into the adjoining hallway before Emma could stop him. 

She let him go, rushing to the gurney and the woman she'd been searching for for two days. "Regina?"

Emma feared she was too late. She dropped her gun on the gurney and tore off the wires connecting to electrodes. She fumbled with the cuff on Regina’s wrist, trying to undo it while also trying to assess the damage. She couldn't even tell if Regina was breathing. Freeing the brunette's wrist, she felt for a pulse and her head dropped in relief when she felt a thready beat beneath clammy skin. Regina was alive; she desperately needed medical attention, but she was alive. 

Emma moved back to her face, gently cupping Regina's damp cheeks in her hands. “Regina, can you hear me?”

The red-rimmed eyes flickered. Emma carefully removed the electrodes that were attached at Regina’s temples. She winced at the burn marks they left behind and gently brushed hair away from them. “Regina, you’re going to be all right. I’m going to get you out of here. Just stay with me.”

She reached down and undid the strap from across Regina’s chest and then leaned over her to let loose her opposite wrist. 

“Em…ma?” 

The word was uttered so quietly she almost missed it. Her eyes flew to Regina’s face. “Yeah, Reg, it’s me. It's Emma." Regina's breathing quickened. "Ssshh, Regina, it's going to be all right. I'm going to get you out of here."

“Emma,” Regina said again, her voice a ragged whisper. Her hand flailed, trying to get the blonde’s attention even as Emma undid the straps on Regina’s legs. Her head rolled limply to the side. “There…”

Emma realized Regina was trying to tell her something. She caught the flailing hand. “Regina, what is it?” She looked into black-brown eyes blown wide with fear. “Regina? What is it?”

“There were…two of them.”


	21. Losing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, those tagged warnings still exist for this chapter too.

_“There were…two of them.”_

No sooner had the words been spoken then a gunshot exploded in the room. Emma jolted forward, a rush of air driven from her lungs as she fell across Regina’s middle. A second shot sounded, Emma grunted and Regina felt a wet gush of warmth on the arm that was trapped underneath the blonde. “EMMA!” 

Something hard pushed against Regina’s hand and Emma glared at her, grimacing. A third shot fired and Emma cried out as it hit the back of her thigh. Her knees buckled and she slid off the gurney. 

Emma hit the floor hard, landing awkwardly as pain flooded over her, threatening to overwhelm. Fire burned in her leg and she grabbed instinctively for the ragged, bleeding wound at her waist. Her vest had caught the first round, bruising the hell out of her back, but because she’d been slumped over, the second round had slipped beneath her protection and burned straight through her. She turned her head in time to see Tamara Williams move further into the room, her still smoking gun aimed straight at Emma while the woman kept her dark gaze trained on Regina. 

“Let her go,” Regina growled, her voice sounding like sandpaper on glass.

Emma looked up and saw Regina trying to prop herself up on one shaking elbow. Her red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes were boring holes into Tamara. Emma would’ve run from that look; Tamara just sneered and ignored her. She looked down at Emma.

“I told you she’d turn up.” She turned the gun slightly so Emma could see it. “Borrowed this from your partner downstairs. I’m afraid he’s going to have quite the headache if he wakes up.” 

“Always knew…you were a psychotic bitch,” Emma ground out, her fear compounding at the idea this woman had hurt August as well.

“I knew you never liked me,” Tamara said as she lowered herself into a crouch above Emma. "Not that it matters." She put her knee on Emma’s wounded thigh and leaned all her weight on it. 

Emma clenched her teeth and screamed in her throat as the back of her leg ground against the hard floor. She tried to move, to throw the woman off her, but the feel of hard, hot metal at her temple made her still. 

“Ssshhh, that’s it,” Tamara cooed, pressing the gun’s barrel against skin. “You see, Emma, it was never about you. You’re just an unfortunate pawn in all this.” She gestured with the gun towards Regina. “This is about making _her_ suffer.”

Regina glared at her. “Why?”

“For the longest time I thought I was going to have use your sister to teach you a lesson,” Tamara said conversationally, “but the two of you don’t really seem to like each other all that much.” She put the gun back to Emma’s temple. “Imagine my delight when this one showed up.”

“What the fuck do you want?” Emma growled, the adrenalin coursing through her the only thing keeping her from passing out. 

" _Emma_ ," Regina warned, begging the blonde to stay quiet.

Tamara grinned, thrilled to hear the fear in Regina's voice. "That. Right there. That's what I want." She pressed the gun harder against Emma's temple, forcing her to turn her head towards Regina. "Did you hear it, Detective Swan? That note of fear in her voice." She laughed, a dark, humorless sound. "Regina _finally_ understands that she could lose you."

Emma glanced at Regina; she had heard it, but she wasn't about to tell Tamara that. "You are so fucking nuts, lady."

Tamara eyed Regina; the fear had turned to fury. Now they understood each other. "I don't think I am, _Emma_. I'm just heartbroken. Ever since I lost my boy, I would do _anything_ to get him back. Now that I'm going to kill you, Regina finally understands that pain."

“That’s what this is about?” Regina hissed, her heart thundering in her chest. “Your fucking son?”

“HE DISAPPEARED AND YOU DID NOTHING!” 

Emma grunted as Tamara ground the pistol against her skull. She could feel the tremble in Tamara’s grip and knew the end was close.

“Maybe now, she'll try a little harder to find my boy. Maybe now she understands." Tamara caught Emma by the chin with her free hand and forced her to look up. "I'm going to kill her, Regina, your precious partner. There's nothing you can do to stop me." She pointed the gun at Emma's forehead. "Tell me, Detective Mills. Do you feel it yet? That overwhelming sense of hopelessness? That empty spot in your heart that you know will never be filled again? Do you feel it?”

A dark smile twisted Regina’s expression. “No, dear. I'm afraid I don't.”

After two days of torture, the move wasn’t graceful or controlled. It was pure determination and will power to lift the hand that held Emma’s gun. The gun that Emma had forced into Regina’s hand as she had been sliding to the floor. If Tamara had been any further away, it would’ve been a lost cause. But even in her weakened condition, Regina Mills could hit a target less than two feet from her. She pulled the trigger and fired point blank at the woman she had spoken to on a weekly basis for the past five years. 

Emma flinched at the shot and felt Tamara’s body crumple backwards. She sucked in a breath as the pistol fell away from her face and the pressure was gone from her leg. A few seconds later her pistol clattered to the floor beside her. She blinked and looked up to see Regina staring down at her, sweat rolling down her face from her effort to hold herself up. 

“Took you…long enough,” Emma gasped. 

Regina slumped down to her side. “Couldn’t feel…my fingers.” 

Emma laughed then groaned at Regina’s exhausted response. With the immediate danger gone, the last dregs of adrenalin faded from her blood. She was exhausted. And cold. The concrete floor was unforgiving and her gear pressed uncomfortably against her aching back. Her leg burned like someone had stuck a hot poker in it, but conversely her mid-section had gone comfortably numb. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that probably wasn’t a good thing.

Regina suddenly collapsed in a heap on the floor next to her surprising Emma enough that she forced her eyes open. She hadn’t even realized they’d closed. “What are you-”

Regina groaned and a clumsy hand fell over Emma’s where she was still holding the bleeding wound at her waist. Neither of them had the strength to apply the needed pressure so they just lay there. Regina’s breathing was harsh and ragged in Emma’s ear. She tried to turn her head to see Regina’s face but all she could see was a mess of brunette hair. She could feel the woman’s warmth at her side though and that was enough; at least, she wasn’t alone. 

“Emma,” Regina’s rough voice whispered near her ear, “don’t leave me.”

Darkness swallowed Emma’s vision and she could make no promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
>  Okay so if you haven't done it yet, now would be a really good time to go check out the video that inspired this story. You're spoiler free now to go watch it. It's awesome; you'll like it. Finding Regina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA1G_GeKJcs


	22. Waking Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you watched the video yet? Seriously, you should. Completely spoiler free now, plus you'll see how I made some of my narrative decisions if you're interested in that sort of thing. Finding Regina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA1G_GeKJcs

_“…should go home.”                     “No.”                    “Henry…”                           “I’m staying…”_

_“…lost a lot of blood.”                                   “…have to wait…”                           “Idiot.”_

_“I’m not leaving her...”                    “…I know that.”                   “…saved you.”_

_“Sorry…”                             “…love makes everyone crazy.”                                           “I don’t…”_

Oddly enough, it was the quiet that drew her out. She’d been listening to the voices on and off for a while, sometimes she could understand them, sometimes she couldn’t. When she did understand, she didn’t always agree. She’d wanted to comment several times but the thought had left her before she could. But it had been quiet for a while and she found she was just as interested in that as she had been in listening to the voices.

Her nose tickled and something was lying across her upper lip. She felt odd; sensations were present and yet strangely detached. There was a foggy disconnect between her thoughts and feelings. It wasn’t unpleasant, just…unsettling. Maybe she could ask someone about it. She wondered if anyone was around. The disconnect was also present between her thoughts and actions, it seemed. Getting her eyes to open suddenly felt like a monumental task not worth pursuing.

And yet, with her body arguing against it, she wanted to do it all the more. Just _because_ , damn it. A sliver of shadow and pale light appeared as she cracked open one eye. Once she forced it open, several blinks got the other one to respond. Then she had to blink to try and focus. The ceiling she stared at was unfamiliar and there was a slightly metallic scent in the air. Or maybe that was just her nose. She could feel something touching her nostrils and some back part of her brain woke up and told her it was an oxygen tube. She’d had one before; she needed to leave it alone.

That was easy since she didn’t think she really had the energy to reach up and pull it away from her face anyway. She decided she liked it there and would allow it to stay. The rationalization amused her and her brain skittered down another path. The room she was in was quite shadowy. Her eyes appreciated it. No bright glare to adjust to, no sun. Maybe it was night time. The idea clicked into place; that was perfect reasoning. No light because it was dark. No voices because it was night. She sighed, impressed with her own mental acuity.

Wondering what else she could see, she turned her head to the right. A couple of doors, both cracked open, but one had light beyond it and one was dark. She was pretty sure there was some sort of metaphor there. There was also a dim light, a nightstand, and a small cup with a straw sticking out of it. What was she, five years old? A straw. She rolled her eyes and turned to the left.

The left side of the room was definitely more interesting. She lifted her head slightly to try and make sense of it. Her head didn’t like that at all and she dropped back to the pillow after only a few seconds. No more exploring for her. She’d seen enough.

It was all right though; she could go back to sleep. She hadn’t been left alone after all. Her partner, Regina Mills, was asleep in a chair next to the bed. She was safe; they both were.


	23. Best Part of Waking Up (cont.)

The next time she woke up, the room was brighter. Not obnoxiously light but instead of the faded shadows of night she saw faded light of early morning. She squinted for a minute even in the low light; she liked the shadows better. Thankfully, the fog was still present; it had a nice cottony feel to it.

“Emma?”

Did she make a noise? She must’ve made a noise.

“Emma, are you awake?”

She turned to her left. Regina was sitting beside the bed, brown eyes wide as she barely managed to set her steaming cardboard cup down on the nightstand. The brunette reached out a hand and placed it on Emma’s forearm; Emma smiled at the pleasant warmth. Then she frowned as she blinked and took in the whole picture in front of her.

Regina was paler than usual. She had dark smudges under tired blood-shot eyes and a slightly sunken look to her cheeks. She had bandages around her wrists and her dark hair was pulled back in a simple low ponytail. A style Emma had never seen her wear. Regina Mills was not wholly put together and Emma found it disconcerting.

“You look like hell,” she grumbled, her voice dry and rough.

“I suppose that’s better than looking like a call-girl,” Regina responded dryly, although her expression relaxed into relief. She reached above Emma’s head and pressed a button. “How do you feel?”

Emma kept frowning at her. Regina was even wearing a cotton t-shirt; she’d never seen her wear something so casual. Appearance was everything to Regina and she looked exhausted. “Seriously, Reg, what the hell?”

Regina ducked her head self-consciously, tucking a few free strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m not the one in a hospital bed, Emma.”

“Oh.” Emma cast her frown around the room, finally recognizing all the shapes on the windowsill as flower arrangements and balloons. “Does that mean I look worse than you?”

The door to the room was pushed open before Regina answered. Emma looked to see what the interruption was and found a nurse beaming at her. “So, you’ve decided to wake up, then? That’s good.”

“Been sleeping?” Emma asked, looking to Regina. “How long?”

“Three days,” the nurse answered as she did a quick check of vital signs. “Your friend there has been sitting with you for two of them. We couldn’t get her to leave your side.”

Emma grinned, rolling her head back to see Regina give the nurse a poisonous smile. “Awww, Reggie, you do care.”

The nurse grinned again as Emma pointed an unsteady finger at Regina. “The doctor will be around in about an hour, but she’s doing fine. She’ll probably go back to sleep soon.”

Regina nodded to the nurse as she captured the blonde’s flailing hand and held it. “Emma, you’re high on pain meds right now, but you need to stay still.”

“You _care_!” Emma insisted.

“Yes, I care,” Regina agreed. “Now, please…”

Emma frowned. “You called me an idiot.”

Regina blinked. “What?”

“s’okay though,” Emma said slurring her words. “Know you were jus’scared.” She flung her other arm over and patted their joined hands. “You din’t leave me.”

“Emma?”

The fog was growing thicker again and she closed her eyes. “An I din’t leave you.”


	24. Waking Up is Hard to Do (cont.)

Two nights later, Emma found herself once again staring at the ceiling. They’d switched her meds that morning, starting her on a lower dose of pain medication. The comforting, gauzy fog feeling had burned away over the course of the day. The new meds might as well have been plain old aspirin for all the good they were doing. Her leg throbbed in a pulsing beat but the burning pain across her middle was constant. She moved her good leg restlessly, her fist clenched and unclenched.

“Emma?”

And now she’d woken Regina. Great. She couldn’t even suffer in silence and let the woman sleep.

The dim light over the nightstand turned on. “Emma, are you all right?”

She didn’t bother answering. She just concentrated on her breathing. In. Out. Clench. Unclench.

A cool, damp cloth swept over her forehead and down her cheeks. “You’ve got about an hour to go before your next pain pill.”

Fuck. She shifted again, a pointless effort to try and move away from the pain in her leg and side.

“Do you want me to call for the nurse?” Regina asked.

Emma shook her head. The last thing she needed was to get an addiction to the pain meds. She could tough it out.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Distract me,” Emma grunted. “Talk, just talk to me…tell me what happened after.”

“Oh.” Regina glanced towards the door, at the clock on the wall, anywhere but at Emma until the blonde grunted again drawing her attention. “Okay, well, we both passed out. August found us first. He said we scared five years off his life, both of us unconscious, lying there. He couldn’t tell if we were both bleeding out…” She trailed off, remembering how she’d felt it soaking into her pants, Emma’s blood in an ever increasing pool on the dirty concrete. 

She cleared her throat. “You saved us, by the way. Using the emergency signal on your radio, it didn’t transmit to everyone but it got out enough. By the time August found us, everyone else was reaching the building. He talked them in to where we were. I guess we owe him, too.” She wasn't thrilled with the idea. “They found Greg Mendell. He was behind the cannery trying to get away in a boat, but he couldn’t get the motor to start. Idiot. Anyway, they got us out of there in short order, brought us here, took you straight up to surgery.”

Emma held up her hand, thankful when Regina took it. “What about you?”

Regina shrugged. “I’m fine. I was mostly just sore and dehydrated, killer headache. A few residual muscle spasms that will go away soon. I was in and out of it for a while.” She tried a smile. “Snow stayed with me so I was ready to claw my way out of the room after about three hours. I love that woman but…” She shook her head.

There had to be more to it than that. For one thing, she could see the small circular burns on Regina's temples. It would be just like Regina to downplay her problems. Emma made a mental note to have another revealing chat with Mary Margaret.

“Booth is fine by the way,” Regina continued. “Concussion. He stopped by yesterday to see you but you were asleep. Oh, Henry and his mother came by yesterday, too.” She paused. “Do you remember talking to him?”

Did she? Vaguely. “Red balloon?”

Regina nodded. “It’s over on the windowsill. Do you remember anything else about visiting with him?” She waited for Emma to shake her head. “I didn’t think so. You were _very_ happy to see him. You talked at him for over an hour.”

She squeezed Regina’s hand, taking several deep breaths. “At him?”

“I tried to give the two of you some privacy but the parts I did hear included you offering him a pony for his next birthday. When he declined, you then promised him a motorcycle, a dog, and for some strange reason an iguana. You told him he could keep them all at your house. At that point, he knew you were high as a kite and I believe he extracted several other promises as well. You also told some very colorful stories about his father and yourself.”

“Oh God,” Emma groaned for multiple reasons. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

“I tried,” Regina said with a light chuckle. “You informed me that you were quite capable of taking care of yourself. Then you apologized and promised to buy me a new Mercedes.”

Emma winced but whether it was from pain or the promise wasn’t clear. “Don’t hold me to that, okay?”

“No promises.” Regina grimaced when Emma squeezed her hand again. She checked her watch. “Thirty more minutes, Emma. Hang in there.”

Emma nodded and held on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having never personally been shot myself, I'm going with the idea that it has got to hurt worse than they make it look on TV.  
> Thank you for reading! Hope you continue to enjoy!


	25. Back to Work

**_*Four months later*_ **

Emma reached behind the driver’s seat and pulled out her gear bag. She slammed the door to the yellow VW bug and looked at the precinct looming before her. It felt good to finally be getting back to work. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself. She hoped it would be good and not like the last time.

“You just going to stare at it, or are you going to go inside?”

A smile curved her lips and she looked behind her to see August, walking away from his Fat Boy, helmet dangling from his hand. “Were you really just sitting out here waiting for me?”

“Yep,” he said, surprising her with the admission, “and look at that, you’re going to make us late.”

 “I’ve got three minutes,” she said, following him towards the door. “Besides, I’ll just blame you.”

He tapped his head. “Can’t blame me. Concussion, remember? I can’t tell time anymore.”

“Please tell me that you are not still playing the concussion card. That was four months ago.”

He shrugged. “You’ve been out for four months.”

“I was shot,” she protested.

“And I got hit in the head with a two by four.” He pushed open the door to the locker room. “Same difference.”

Emma’s mouth dropped open. “I cannot believe you want to compare…seriously?!”

August grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her. Emma shoved him into his locker as she moved past him. “Well, did you get hit twice? Because I got shot… _twice_.”

She turned the corner and almost ran straight into Regina. The brunette took a quick step backwards. They stared at each other for an awkward moment until Regina cleared her throat. “Actually, it was three times.”

Emma blinked. “What?”

“You got shot three times,” Regina clarified. She gestured towards Booth indicating the discussion the two friends had been having.

“Yeah,” Emma spit out. “I know.”

Regina’s eyes flashed. “I wasn’t insinuating…” She took a breath, nodded tightly. “Welcome back, Swan.” She moved past the blonde, sliding past August as she made her way to the exit. “Booth.”

“Mills,” he acknowledged, watching her leave. He turned back to Emma. “That the first time you’ve seen her since the hospital?”

“Yeah.” Emma’s good mood had completely evaporated. She turned the corner and slammed her hands against her locker. She held herself still, braced against the cold metal, forcing herself to breathe.

“Hey, Emma?”

“Do not ask me if I’m all right, August,” she snapped.

“I...wasn’t,” he said. “I was going to tell you we’re late.”

“Damn it!” She opened her locker and threw her bag into it.

Granny had brought over a cake to welcome Emma back to duty. Thankfully, no one had hung streamers or a banner or anything. She spent the day trying to get her workstation back to an operable condition. All of her accounts and passwords had expired. David gave her a list of available days she could go out to the range and requalify with her weapon. Belle caught her up on all the office gossip she’d missed, and Killian paid for her lunch. Mary Margaret had even stopped by during her break to welcome her back to work. The only person that hadn’t stopped by her desk to visit, the only person that had made themselves incredibly scarce for the better portion of the day, had been Regina.

When it was time to leave for the day, Emma went to the back corner of the locker room and had a seat. She stretched her legs out in front of her and waited. She heard and watched people come and go out of the locker room as one shift ended and another one started. She massaged her thigh muscle with one hand while trying to keep the anger that had been simmering all day from boiling over. Her butt had started to go numb when she finally heard the high heeled shoes she’d been waiting over an hour for. Regina had obviously underestimated her resolve.

She waited another minute, watched the brunette open her locker before she spoke, “Is this how it’s going to be then?”

“Shit!” Regina jumped, pressing her back against the locker. Her hand was over her heart as she looked in the corner at Emma’s hiding place. “What the hell are you…have you been hiding back there?”

“Hiding?” Emma repeated, getting to her feet. “I guess you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? You’ve been hiding all damn day.”

Regina tried to recover herself, dropping her hand back to her side. “I had work to do.”

“Mal had work to do. She still managed to find five minutes today to call me and tell me it was about damn time I got my ass back to work. Ruby had three call-outs last night, but she still came by to see me. Hell, the officer at the front desk, left his post, walked over to my desk and returned my damn stapler,” she practically yelled. “But my partner? She couldn’t be bothered to say more than a dozen words to me today.”

“It sounds to me like you had more than enough people chatting you up today,” Regina snapped back. “And for the record, I did try to welcome you back this morning. Which is when you made it clear you had no wish to speak to me.” She straightened her jacket. “So yes, I avoided you today.”

“You’ve been avoiding me for four months!”

Regina didn’t deny it.

“So what the hell was that, Regina? I mean, you stayed with me in the hospital for over a week. You saw me through the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life, and then you just disappeared. You didn’t visit; you didn’t call. You didn’t _accept_ my calls.” She paused, waited, hoped Regina would give her some kind of answer but the brunette remained silent. Emma slumped down onto the bench that ran in front of the lockers. “You know everybody I saw today, everybody out there that came by and said hello today? I’ve seen all of them in the past four months. _All_ of them. But not you. Why is that, Regina?”

Regina gathered her keys and her purse out of her locker and shut it. She didn’t look at Emma. “You should just be thankful and leave it at that.”

Emma almost let her leave, but the thankful bit clawed at her. “Daniel’s death wasn’t your fault.”

Regina froze. She didn’t turn, she didn’t move. She simply stopped.

“I read the accident report.” Emma admitted, getting back to her feet. “He wasn’t wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident. If he had been, he probably would’ve walked away.” She moved until she stood directly behind the brunette’s back. “His death was not your fault, Regina.” She paused, giving the statement a chance to sink in. “And if I had died that day at the cannery, if Tamara had killed me, that wouldn’t have been your fault either.”

Emma saw the shudder that ran down Regina’s back at the mention of Tamara. She didn’t have to look down to know the brunette’s hands were white-knuckled fists at her sides. Emma reached for her. “Regina, please-”

Regina startled at the touch and jerked away, spinning to face her. Brown eyes met Emma’s and scorched her with fury. “Good night. Detective Swan.”

Emma hooked her hands in her pockets and watched Regina leave. She wasn’t sure what reaction or explanation she’d been hoping for but it sure as hell hadn’t been that. She sighed, collected her things from her locker, and walked outside.

The rest of the week followed suit. They were professional, chillingly polite to each other, and avoided being in the same room as much as possible. By the time Emma walked out of the precinct Friday evening, she was exhausted. Despite being more than ready to return to work, the week had been draining both emotionally and physically. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see Killian leaning against her car, waiting for her with one booted foot crossed over the other at the ankle.

“Fancy getting a drink with me, Swan?” he asked, grinning.

She was pretty sure she was going to live to regret her answer, but it was the only answer she could possibly give. “God, yes.”


	26. Falling Swan

Regina startled awake, blinking several times as she realized she’d fallen asleep on her couch. She glanced at the clock on her mantle and groaned. She didn’t know what had woken her but at least she didn’t spend the entire night on the couch. She sat up and placed the book she’d been reading on the coffee table while simultaneously gathering up the empty wine glass so she could take it into the kitchen.

She was halfway across the hall when she heard laughter, a thump against her front door, and then the unmistakable sound of Emma Swan’s voice.

“Reg-ina Mills! Open this door! This is the police!” An uncoordinated trio of thumps landed against the door before finally the doorbell rang.

Regina stared in horrified bewilderment until the continuous ringing of the doorbell grated her nerves and spurred her into action. She paused at the last second by the front door, worried that if she yanked it open, she’d be flattened by falling Swan.

“Regina! Your lights are on!” Emma banged on the door again. “Safety check!”

God, she was going to wake the entire neighborhood. Twisting the deadbolt open as loudly as she could, Regina eased open the door, assuming correctly that the loss of support would leave the blonde off-balance. Bracing herself, she caught Emma by the shoulders and kept her upright.

“Mills!” Emma pointed a finger at her face. “You are late for duty.”

Regina leaned away from the blonde’s rum soaked breath. A throaty, male chuckle had Regina looking past Emma’s shoulder to find Killian standing at the foot of the stairs leading up to Regina’s porch. She glared at him while still mostly supporting Emma. “What is the meaning of this, Killian?”

“The lady insisted,” he said, thoroughly enjoying himself. He’d managed to catch Regina so off guard she’d forgotten to call him by his last name. “Who was I to argue?”

Emma pushed off Regina and pulled down on the bottom of her red leather jacket, straightening it. “You’re up past curfew, Mills.”

Insuring Emma could stand on her own, Regina descended the steps to get in Killian’s face. “You took her out and got her drunk?”

“Aye, she’s a bit of a lightweight right now, hadn’t factored in that she hadn’t been drinking in several months,” he admitted, running a finger over his jaw. “Didn’t want to just leave her to her own devices.”

“So you brought her here?!”

“Holy shit, Mills!” Emma’s voice called out from inside the foyer. “How come I’ve never seen the inside of your house?”

They both turned and saw Emma stumble on the foyer steps before catching herself as she moved further into the house. Killian cuffed Regina on the shoulder and started backing away. “Watch over her for me, yeah?”

“Why didn’t you just take her home with you?” Even as she asked the question, she hated the idea that he had probably considered doing just that. He was an honorable enough sort but she still didn’t like the idea of Emma staying the night with him.

“Because some of us have to work tomorrow, love,” he explained still backing away. “That some being me and not either of you.” He made it to her gate, leading to the sidewalk. “You can thank me later.”

With that last parting shot, he made his escape. Regina stood staring after him until the sound of something being knocked over and Emma cursing drew her hurriedly back inside.

Emma sat on the couch, clutching her knee. The knocked askew coffee table a clear indicator of what Emma had run into. Regina sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

“No, Regina, wait!” Emma collapsed over sideways on the couch reaching for her. “Don’t leave me.”

Regina chuckled until she saw the consternation on Emma’s face. She softened and took a step back towards Emma. “I’m just going across to the kitchen. I’m not leaving you. I’ll be right back.”

Emma reached for her hand and grabbed it. “No.”

Regina was pulled in by the blonde, stumbling closer as Emma wrapped Regina’s hand up in both of hers and clutched it to her chest. “Emma?”

She watched as a contented smile spread across Emma’s face, and the blonde settled further into the couch cushions keeping Regina’s hand trapped against her chest like a child’s teddy bear. Realization dawned and Regina tugged her hand free. “Oh no, you don’t. Come on, Emma. Up you go.”

She bodily moved Emma back to a sitting position, relieved when the green eyes opened, blinking blearily at her. “Come on, Reggie, let me sleep.”

The name grated against her every nerve; Swan would hear about that later. Grabbing her by the front of her jacket, Regina hauled Emma up to her feet. “You are not sleeping on the couch. Come on, let’s go.”

She draped Emma’s arm over her shoulder and felt dead weight lean into her. It was almost two in the morning and hauling the blonde up the stairs to the guest bedroom was going to be as good as any workout she could’ve had at the gym. “Wake up, Emma! I am not carrying you.”

“m’awake.”

“Damn you, Killian,” Regina muttered, sweat breaking out on her forehead by the time they were halfway up the stairs.

Emma giggled and leaned closer to Regina. “Didja know he has a soft spot for you?”

“What?” Regina’s shoulder hit the wall when Emma leaned further into her.

“S’true. He likes you.” When they got to the landing, Emma was sufficiently distracted from pursuing the subject of Killian. "How do you have such a big house on a cop's salary?"

"Investments, dear." Regina pushed her hair out of her face.

Never hearing her answer, Emma jumped to her own conclusion. "Are you on the take?" 

For a brief moment, Regina was utterly offended. "Yes, Emma. Every month, I accept payments from a dwarf named Evil-y who runs the Storybrooke underground." 

Emma stared at her, her mind working very hard to process the comment into something she understood. After a long minute, a wide smile broke out over her face, and she slapped at Regina’s shoulder. "No, you don't. We don't have any dwarves in Storybrooke." 

"Yes, because that's the reason my answer was ridiculous." She steered Emma towards the spare bedroom and sat her down on the mattress. "Hold still." 

"...bam-ba-lam...rock steady," Emma mumbled song lyrics, swaying slightly, hands tapping to the unheard beat as Regina unlaced her calf length boots and pulled them off. That task complete, Regina stood up, Emma leaning back as she watched her. "Whoa, Black Betty!" 

Regina shook her head unable to completely repress her amusement as Emma almost fell backwards on the bed. She steadied the blonde, the trusting green eyes following her every movement and considered what to do next. During that awful time in the hospital, Regina had seen more of Emma than she'd ever intended so there was really no reason to hesitate now. 

She helped Emma back to her feet and unzipped the blonde's jacket, pulling it off her shoulders. "Do you want to sleep in your sweater?" 

Emma shook her head and began tugging at the hem. “Too hot.” With effort, she managed to get it off over her head and Regina helped untangle it from her arms. 

Regina tugged the light weight tank top Emma wore underneath back down and then braced herself. "What about your jeans?" 

Emma tried cocking an eyebrow. "You trying to get my pants off, Detective Mills?" 

Regina had expected nothing less. She couldn't imagine the tight, skinny jeans that Emma seemed to favor could possibly be comfortable to sleep in so she simply raised an eyebrow back before reaching behind Emma to pull back the sheets and comforter on the bed. "Do you need help?" 

"No," Emma grumbled. She momentarily sobered as she concentrated on the button and zipper, managing them without noticing Regina's steadying hand on her elbow. Shimmying the jeans down to her knees required a bit more balance before she finally sat back on the bed sighing with relief. 

Crouching down, Regina tugged the jeans the rest of the way off Emma's legs and set them aside. She eyed the blonde carefully scrutinizing her. "Are you going to get sick?" 

"Don't get sick," Emma mumbled, looking away from her. 

"There's a trash can right next to the bed. Use it if you need to." Regina took Emma's chin in her hand, forcing her to look at her. "If you get sick in this bed, Swan, I will filet you. Do you understand?" 

Emma pulled away from her and flopped down on the pillows, grumbling. Regina covered her with the blanket and left to retrieve a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water from the bathroom across the hall. By the time she returned, she saw Emma had turned on her side, giving Regina her back; Regina hoped she had already gone to sleep. She set the water and aspirin on the nightstand confident Emma would appreciate them in the morning. She was almost out the door when she heard Emma sniffle, she paused then heard another. "Emma?" 

The blonde hair shifted against the pillow as the body beneath the blankets curled in on itself. Regina moved back towards the bed. "Emma, are you all right?" 

She received no response except another suspicious sniff. Regina gently sat down on the edge of the bed and put her hand on the younger woman's shoulder. She could feel Emma shudder beneath the blanket and she had a horrible flashback to those days in the hospital when Emma had been adjusting to the lighter medications. "Emma, please talk to me." 

"You care more about the duvet than you do me." 

Regina blinked and pulled her hand back; the blonde's watery response was not what she had been expecting. “Again, please.” 

Emma glared at her over her shoulder. "S'true." 

"I assure you, Emma, that I do not care about a square of linen more than I do you.” 

Emma huffed and laid back down on her side, her face hidden from Regina. After several minutes of silence, Regina sighed and stood to leave. 

“I thought you were dead.”

Regina sank back onto the bed at the quietly whispered confession. She placed her hand on the younger woman’s blanket covered leg. “Oh, Emma. I’m fine.” 

“You weren’t.” Emma rolled over until she was facing Regina, her green eyes were bright despite the low shadows of the room. “I couldn’t find you, Regina.”

Emma’s voice broke and Regina knelt beside the bed, gently brushing hair out of Emma’s face. “But you did find me, Emma. You saved me.”

A sob escaped and Emma lunged forward, wrapping her arms awkwardly around Regina’s shoulders. Hugging her tight, she buried her face in the space between Regina’s shoulder and neck. Regina could feel hot tears soaking into her shirt, and she cradled Emma against her the best she could from the awkward position.

Emma shook and sobbed for several minutes, her whole body trembling. Regina held onto her long after the position had become uncomfortable for her. Her knees would not thank her in the morning, but eventually Emma calmed enough that she leaned back, still sniffling. Regina offered Kleenex and again brushed hair out of Emma’s face as she settled back against the pillow. Within minutes, Emma was asleep.

Regina sat back on her heels, briefly closing her own eyes against the tears she hadn’t shed. She probably should have let herself have a good cry, but it was so ingrained in her not to give in that she’d blinked the moisture back, convincing herself she was being strong for Emma. She doubted the blonde would want to acknowledge the alcohol-fueled emotions in the light of day.

She could not have been more wrong.


	27. Coffee and Aspirin

****Regina stood at the island in the kitchen, drinking coffee, and scrolling through a few emails on her phone when she heard footsteps descending the staircase. Turning off her phone, she pulled another mug from the cabinet and poured a second cup of coffee, adding enough sugar to it to make her own teeth hurt but she knew that’s how Emma liked it. She paused when she heard the steps continue past the kitchen and towards the front door. Surely, the blonde couldn’t be that rude.

The thump of boots being dropped and then another softer thump sounded in the foyer before Emma slowly made her way back to the kitchen. She appeared in the door, barefoot but redressed in her sweater and jeans from the night before. She held up the bottle of aspirin. “Thanks.”

Regina pushed the cup of coffee towards her. “Breakfast?”

Emma huffed out a low laugh as she slid onto the bar stool. “A world of no.”

Regina had expected as much. She leaned back against the counter and watched Emma cradle the coffee for several minutes before actually taking a sip.

“You really do know how I take my coffee,” Emma muttered.

She felt a little smug at the blonde's surprise. “I told you I did.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The reply was bitter but Regina chalked it up as Emma simply being hungover. She busied herself with her own coffee mug, finishing the last dregs before rinsing it out in the sink. She wiped down the counter with a hand towel and considered turning off the machine and putting it back in its place. She glanced at Emma, intending to ask her if she’d want another cup, and found the woman glaring at her. “What?”

Emma snorted and shook her head. “Nothing.”

Regina threaded the dishtowel through her fingers. She locked her jaw against the sharp reply she wanted to say and settled for glaring right back at the blonde.

Emma pushed her barstool back, the legs making an ungodly noise against the floor as she got to her feet. “Thanks for the coffee.” She pushed the half-full mug towards Regina. “I guess I’ll see you at work.”

Regina felt her jaw drop as Emma headed for the hall. She threw the towel down. “That’s it?!”

Emma froze in the doorway, one hand smacking the frame before she turned around. “I’m _trying_ to be nice.”

“Nice?” Regina circled the island, placing herself within a few feet of the blonde. “You show up here in the middle of the night, drunk off your ass, and now without a word of explanation you’re leaving?” She glared at Emma. “ _Screw_ nice, Emma.”  
   
The blonde’s jaw worked back and forth as she looked down; she nodded, seemingly to herself. “Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “Fine.” She moved forward with measured steps until she was less than a foot away from the brunette. She leaned closer, finally raising her gaze to the brunette at the last possible moment. “Fuck you, Regina.”  
   
Regina stumbled backwards a step. She never retreated in fear from anyone, but the fury she saw in the green eyes that were inches from her face left her no other course of action. It was fight or flight at its most basic and in that moment fight never occurred to her as an option. “Excuse me?”  
   
“You heard me. I said. Fuck. You.” She watched as Regina took another step back. She was sorely tempted to pursue the woman, to make her even more uncomfortable, but she could do that with words. “Fuck you for pushing me away to protect yourself from maybe, just _maybe_ , having to feel something for once.”  
   
Regina grabbed the counter to steady herself.  
   
Emma noticed the uncharacteristic display of weakness and rocked back on her heels, forcing herself not to close the space between them. “Did you even hear me last night? I _thought_ you were dead. I thought I had lost you. I bared my soul to you, and yet, here you are, in your kitchen acting like last night didn’t even happen.”  
   
“Emma, I-”  
   
“And it was close, Regina. It was _real_ fucking close. Mendell was ready to kill you. He’d had his fun, and he was ready to let you die. If I’d been even a couple of minutes slower, he would have succeeded.”  
   
“I’m aware-”  
   
“And that wasn’t even the worst part.” Now that she’d opened the gates, there was no closing them. "No. The worst part was that I _hoped_ you would scream."  
   
Regina could feel the blood draining out of her face. “What?”  
   
Emma braced her hands on the counter, her knuckles turning white the harder she gripped the edge. “We couldn’t find you, Reg. Not until we heard you scream.” She bowed her head, her hair falling over her shoulders, shrouding her in a blonde curtain of privacy. “I had to _hope_ that bastard would hurt you. _Again_. I needed you to scream so I could find you.” Emma’s voice was almost a whisper. “Do you have any idea what that’s like? _Hoping_ that someone you love will cry out in pain? Do you have any idea what that does to me? The nightmares I’ve had since that day…”  
   
“Emma,” Regina whispered, taking a tentative step forward. “I never meant…I didn’t know.”  
   
“Yeah, I know you didn’t know.” Emma straightened abruptly, sniffing, running a quick hand under her eyes. “Because we haven’t talked. You wouldn’t take my calls.” The muscle in her jaw flexed as she closed her eyes. “There’s been a lot of nights, Regina… _a lot_ of nights, when I really needed to hear your voice. To _know_ you were all right.” She flashed a brittle smile. “But you never answered the phone. In four months, you never once…”  
   
“Emma, I would have answered,” Regina said, straightening. She ignored the blonde’s sound of disbelief. “If you had called me in the middle of the night, I _would_ have answered,” she swore.  
   
Emma shook her head. “Why would I-”  
   
“I know what it’s like to try and discern dream from reality,” Regina snapped, sending them both into momentary silence. She lowered her head. “For me, it’s Tamara.”  
   
Emma eyed her warily. “What about her?”  
   
“She stands over you, and she pulls the trigger. I’m not fast enough; I don’t save you." Regina shrugged. "I see it every night, over and over in my dreams. I’ve watched you die a hundred different ways the moment you step foot in that room.” She moved an arm protectively over her middle. “S-sometimes it's even me that pulls the trigger.”  
   
Emma’s eyes widened at the admission, at the guilt she could hear in the brunette’s voice. “I’m here, Regina. I’m fine.”  
   
Regina stared down at her hands. “The only reason you were ever hurt is because of me.”  
   
Emma considered that; she knew how self-guilt worked. She'd been there and done that. Knowing that, she wanted to temper her response, but wasn’t that what they’d been doing for four months? And where had it gotten them? She'd already brought the sledge hammer out; she might as well just keep swinging. “That's bullshit, Mills, and you know it.”  
   
Regina’s head snapped up at the blunt response, her mouth dropping open as anger rolled into her eyes.  
   
“I got hurt because I’m a cop,” Emma stated plainly. "I walked into a dangerous situation against a couple of psychotics because they had kidnapped someone and were torturing them. I got hurt because I was doing my job."

"You got hurt because you were trying to save me."

"Yeah, well, you saved me right back." Emma shrugged. "Kind of makes us even, doesn't it?"

It didn't feel even. It felt like she had been exposed, laid bare for all the world to see. It felt like... "Tamara was right about one thing."

Emma's head cocked to the side. "What's that?"

"I finally understood that I could lose you."

 

 

 


	28. Son of a Crow

“I can only coherently tell you about how it started,” Regina admitted. With the proverbial ice broken between them regarding the last few months, they had moved their discussion into the sitting room. Regina nursed a second cup of coffee while Emma had switched to much needed water. “I arrived at the address that had been given in the tip; Greg Mendell was there. He greeted me and said while he was preparing the abandoned property for auction, he’d found something in the garage. He held the door open for me, and as soon as I stepped past him he tasered me.”

Emma stretched her arm out over the back of the couch, her fingers dug into the cushion. “I bet that pissed you off.”

“You have no idea.” She took a sip of her coffee. “He hit it more than once, held it for longer than they ever did at the academy; there were some kicks and punches thrown in for good measure, but he liked his toy. I passed out at some point and when I woke up my hands were zip-tied in front of me; my feet were bound at the ankle.” She looked at her wrists like she could still see the restraints. “He’d taken my coat off and was patting me down when I came to. He had my gun and my car keys; he put tape over my mouth and promised he’d be right back.”

"He left you?" Emma asked, surprised. “Where’d he go?”

“Not far, but I think he cleaned out the trunk of my car, made sure there wasn't anything in it I could use. I could hear enough to know he wasn’t at his car. I tried to get up, to find a sharp edge, but there was nothing I could reach. Then I heard him coming back and knew I was running out of time. I grabbed the scarf off my coat and threw it under the workbench. He almost caught me in the act. When he came back in, he was carrying a sleeping bag, I…lost it.” She lowered her eyes to her hands. “I became a wild animal caught in a trap; I tried everything I could think of to get away from him. I kicked; I squirmed. The zip ties cut into my skin. He enjoyed stalking me across the garage.”

Emma’s chest hurt and she realized she was holding her breath.

“He said he knew how strong I was. Said he’d been watching me for a long time, waiting.” She was wringing her hands and balled her fists to stop herself. “He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and asked if I recognized it.” She took an unsteady breath. “I did. It had belonged to my father. Still had his initials embroidered on the corner. I hadn’t seen it since the Crow attacked me. I’d always assumed it had gotten thrown away or picked up as evidence.”

“Mendell was there that night?” Emma whispered, horrified.

Regina nodded. “He claimed he’d taken it from my dresser the night I killed his father. They’d apparently done a dry run while I was working. They’d gone through my things…” She shuddered, an expression briefly contorting her face before it smoothed out again. “They found the holster I kept on the bed; it was how they’d known I slept with a gun under my pillow. It was how his dad had known to bring chloroform. Mendell said he’d been waiting for his dad in the car when he heard the gunshot. When his dad didn’t come out of the house, he fled.”

“And has been waiting for you ever since.”

“He made sure I saw him pour the chloroform on the handkerchief. He’d backed me into a corner; it was easy for him to pin my legs down, control my hands.” Regina swallowed thickly and shook her head to clear it. “I woke up in the trunk of my own car, sweltering inside a sleeping bag. Honestly, I was surprised I woke up at all.”

Emma couldn’t stand it anymore; she had to get up, had to move. She circled the couch and ended up pacing in front of the fireplace. “We found your prints in the trunk. They were bloody.”

Regina held up her hands. “Cut my palms to pieces on the floor of the garage. As soon as I woke up, I clawed that damn sleeping bag off my head so I could breathe.” She shrugged. “Bloody fingerprints weren’t a problem. He’d thrown my coat in with me. I tried to reach the pocket for my phone on the off chance he’d missed it.”

Emma shook her head. “It must’ve fallen out; we found it on the road.”

“I didn’t know that at the time. He wasn’t happy when he opened the trunk and saw me looking up at him. Tamara was standing beside him. I didn’t understand…couldn’t figure out what she was doing there. I tried to convince her to help me.” A dark, humorless laugh escaped. “She quickly made it very clear that she was not there to assist me. They were kindred spirits.” She shook her head. “I think they must’ve drugged me again. Everything gets very hazy. I woke up alone, in the dark; it was freezing and damp. I was chained up to a pipe at some point; the fish smell was overwhelming.” Her stomach lurched at the memory. “Then they had me on that gurney, strapped down. Mendell took his time hooking those damn wires to me. Everything just runs together once they started on me there. They both hated me so much.”

“They hated themselves,” Emma scoffed. “They were just taking it out on you.”

“She left at some point,” Regina said, frowning, trying to remember. “Said she would bring someone back for me. I didn’t understand at the time…” 

“It was not your fault, Regina.” She would say it as many times as she had to.

“I know.” She saw Emma’s raised eyebrow and gave a half-smile. “Logically, I know. Up here,” she tapped her head, “I know. But that doesn’t always translate to my heart.”

Emma sank back down onto the couch, elbows on knees, leaning forward. “So, what happened, Regina? And this time, I’m not talking about at the warehouse.”

The brunette busied her hands with the empty coffee mug. “I needed to make sure you were all right. That’s why I stayed with you in the hospital.”

“But then you left.”

“I didn’t _leave_ , Emma,” she argued. “I ran.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for continuing to read!  
> 


	29. Snow's Sister

_Mary Margaret stepped off the elevator and almost dropped the coffee she was carrying when she saw a cluster of people standing at the door to her sister's hospital room. Her heart dropped down to her stomach; she'd only been gone twenty minutes. What could have possibly happened? Then she heard Regina's voice.  
_

_Regina's **raised** voice.  
_

_It was such an uncommon sound that Mary Margaret actually stopped in her tracks. Regina never needed to raise her voice; she had always been capable of eviscerating anyone at normal levels of volume. If anything, she usually lowered her voice, a sure indicator of danger if anyone continued to press her. Alarms could be heard blaring from inside the room and a few nurses finally noticed Mary Margaret. Their combined looks were not friendly but they parted to let her pass.  
_

_"-get your medical degree? Some fairytale college run by pixies?!"_

_"Regina!" Mary Margaret stepped into a war zone with her sister squaring off against Dr. Whale. The doctor was standing close to Regina, his hands held up in surrender as the charge nurse stood behind him, a syringe held covertly in her hand down by her side. Mary Margaret had no doubt the syringe contained a sedative of some sort. Both medical professionals looked imploringly at her while her sister kept her irate focus on her targets._

_The alarms continued to blare and Mary Margaret noticed that not only was Regina out of bed and on her feet, but she had ripped off her oxygen tube, her heart monitor, and removed the IV from the back of her hand. She looked ready for war and Mary Margaret knew confronting her directly would not get any of them anywhere. She cleared her throat. "Blue, could you please shut that alarm off? It's not really helping the situation."_

_The charge nurse narrowed her eyes at Mary Margaret and looked ready to protest._

_Mary Margaret didn't give her the chance. "Dr. Whale, could you please give my sister and me a minute? Thank you.” She added the thanks to make it clear it was not a request. She turned to the staff gathered by the door. "Thank you all for your concern. My family appreciates your devotion to caregiving."_

_The dismissal was quite clear. Blue seemed to be the only obstinate target as even the good doctor seemed to want out of the room. It was only when he began to back up that his movement spurred Blue to give up her plan of attempting to force Regina’s compliance. If the situation wasn't quite so dire, Mary Margaret would've found Blue's notion amusing. Blue wouldn’t survive one round with Regina. Finally, the alarm shut off and Mary Margaret nodded her thanks as she ushered the nurse and doctor out of the room, closing the door behind them._

_Regina snarled immediately, "Those imbeciles-"_

_"REGINA!" Mary Margaret snapped at her sister. "Sit. Down." She saw her sister bow up ready to take on a new target. "Please. Before you fall down." It was a genuine concern. It may have escaped the notice of others but Mary Margaret knew her sister. The fact that she hadn't stalked right past the doctor and his nurse spoke volumes._

_"I'm fine."_

_Mary Margaret sighed and looked pointedly at Regina's hand clutching the bed's side rail for support. "Regina, please." She approached cautiously. "I was only gone for twenty minutes." While she talked, she loosened Regina’s grip and guided her towards the chair, knowing better than to try and get her back in the bed. "What happened?"_

_Regina sank into the chair, her fatigue betraying her even if she didn't acknowledge it. "I want to see Emma."_

_Mary Margaret knelt on the floor in front of her sister. She sighed in realization. "You waited until I left the room."_

_The older brunette wouldn't look at her. "She shouldn't be alone."_

_"Regina." She took her sister's hands in hers; her thumbs brushed gently over the bandages wrapped around Regina's wrists. "You are still recovering and you need to rest. Emma is being taken care of."_

_"I'm recovered enough that I can sit and rest in her room just as easily as I can rest sitting here."_

_"She's going to be fine."_

_Regina shook her head minutely. "You don't know that."_

_"Yes, I do," Mary Margaret insisted. "She lost a lot of blood, but they stabilized her."_

_"She hasn't woken up yet. That's what you told me," Regina argued. "You said until she wakes up they can't be sure."_

_Mary Margaret should've known that would be the one sentence in an hour’s worth of conversation that Regina would latch onto. "I also said they expect her to make a full recovery."_

_She readied herself to counter argue whatever Regina tried next but nothing came. She watched her sister's resolute stare out the window then rested her head on the older brunette’s knee. "You aren't going to let this go, are you?"_

_"No," Regina answered simply._

_Snow pushed to her feet. "She's in ICU. They might not even let you in to see her."_

_Regina looked up at her sister. "You really think there is a soul in this hospital that can keep me out?"_

_It was another ten minutes of negotiation before Snow was wheeling her sister towards the ICU. She'd convinced Regina to sit in a wheelchair but failed to extract an agreement on a time limit. Mary Margaret was fairly certain Regina had no intention of leaving Emma's side. Rather than waste mental energy on how to try and change her sister’s mind, she began working on strategies to convince everyone else of the new reality._

_Three hours later, Mary Margaret ended her call with David and gave the officer in the waiting room an embarrassed smile. “Thank you for understanding.”_

_“We’re just glad to see her on her feet again,” he grinned, “and back in fighting spirit.”_

_The officer had been standing guard outside Emma’s room in ICU when Mary Margaret had arrived with Regina. Emma wasn’t in any danger, but it had been more of a traditional thing to not leave a wounded officer alone; there’d been a rotation of officers keeping watch outside her room since she’d arrived. Regina had curtly dismissed him as she’d batted away her sister’s offer of assistance. When Regina had snarled something along the lines of being injured and not an invalid, the officer had chosen the better part of discretion and removed himself to the waiting room instead._

_Being the wife of the town’s police chief had given Mary Margaret some political experience and she had used every bit of it to keep the mood of the floor calm. Not only had she corralled Regina but she had also been busy soothing the egos of several nurses that had tried suggesting her sister leave. They’d all finally come to a terse understanding that Regina would be considered the police presence for Emma’s room while any other officers could wait outside the ICU._

_Mary Margaret had also spoken to Dr. Whale. He’d been amicable to the change of room as long as Regina didn’t over exert herself and wore the heart monitor for the next twenty-four hours. Assuming Emma’s condition didn’t decline over night, she would be moved to a private room in the morning. Mary Margaret could only hope her sister would be a bit more reasonable then._

_She stretched her neck from side to side and took a steadying breath. When the officer chuckled she glanced at him, her eyebrow raised in question._

_He smiled, knowingly. “Once more unto the breach, then?”_

_“Something like that,” she managed with a wan smile before she left him in the waiting room. With a shy glance at the nurse’s desk, she slipped into Emma’s room. Regina hadn’t moved and was still sitting beside the bed holding the blonde’s hand. “Any change?”_

_Regina merely grunted and Mary Margaret risked putting her hand on her sister’s shoulder. When she didn’t get berated for offering the comfort, she gave the tense muscle a light squeeze._

_“How could she be so stupid?”_

_Mary Margaret stiffened. “What?”_

_“She’s an idiot,” she muttered._

_“Regina!” Mary Margaret kept her voice quiet, but she was appalled. “Emma saved your life.”_

_“Don’t you think I know that?” Regina snapped over her shoulder. “She could’ve gotten herself killed.” She turned back to Emma. “She almost did.”_

_Mary Margaret blinked. She watched in stunned silence as her sister ran her hand quickly underneath both of her eyes. It was more emotion than she’d seen from Regina since learning of Daniel’s death. She'd cried that day in the hospital, but Mary Margaret hadn't seen her cry since. Because of her own injuries, she'd missed the funeral and the few times Mary Margaret had seen her sister at the cemetery she’d been downright stoic._

_Once, a few months after the incident with the Crow, Mary Margaret had received a sobbing call that had sent her racing to her sister’s house in the middle of the night, but Mal had been there when she arrived. Most of the evidence of a late night drinking binge had been cleared up and her sister had already been safely tucked into bed. She and Regina had never spoken of it; Mal assured Mary Margaret several months later that it never happened again._

_“I’m not leaving her, Snow.”_

_The quiet declaration had Mary Margaret closing her eyes. “I know. I’m not going to ask you to.”_

_“You’re not?”_

_“Nope, I know better than to push you.”_

_“Thank you,” Regina said tiredly, leaning into her sister’s side, “for taking care of the nurses. I know I wasn’t being very pleasant.”_

_“That’s all right.” Mary Margaret leaned down and kissed her sister’s head. “Love makes everyone crazy sometimes.”_

_Regina stiffened, her forehead creased with a frown. “I don’t think…that’s not why Emma risked her life…”_

_“Oh, Regina, I wasn’t talking about Emma.”_


	30. Realization

“So, Mary Margaret thinks that you…?”

Regina cleared her throat, choosing not to clarify what Snow did or did not think. “When…when I was in that factory on that damn gurney, I was so tired. The pain was excruciating and I just…” She paused, swallowing thickly. “He wanted me scared. He wanted me to beg. I didn’t. But I didn’t care anymore either. He’d done his worst and I thought all that was left was for him to kill me. I even taunted him.”

Emma sucked in a fearful breath at the dark admission.

“But then suddenly, the pain stopped, and you were there. You were there, Emma, and I was suddenly the most terrified I have ever been in my entire life.”

Emma frowned. She really hoped the brunette didn’t feel ashamed over that. “It was a bad situation, Regina. Anyone would’ve been scared. Hell, I was scared.”

The corner of Regina’s mouth teased upwards. “I wasn’t scared for me, Emma. I was terrified for you.”

Brown, soulful eyes met green and Emma shook her head in confusion. “You were worried about me?”

"You were my only concern," Regina said. “Then later in the hospital, I woke up and Snow told me they weren’t sure yet if you were going to survive, and I thought – it’s happening again. I wake up in the hospital to find out someone I love has been ripped away from me. And yet, even then I didn’t realize it.”

“Realize what?” Emma asked quietly.

“That I had fallen in love with you.”

Emma went as still as a statue, afraid that if she moved a muscle the moment would shatter before she could fully comprehend it. After a full minute of Regina looking more uncomfortable by the second, Emma managed to ask, “That’s why you ran?”

“If either of us had been in any better condition the night Snow pointed it out, I may have run then, but I couldn’t leave you like that. Not how you were.” Regina let her eyes meet Emma’s briefly. “So, I pushed the feeling down and tried to ignore it. I thought if I could suppress it long enough, it would go away.” She sighed. “It didn’t.”

“I never meant to not see you for four months,” Regina admitted. “That week in the hospital had been so intense and such a roller coaster, I thought I’d give myself some time away from you. Maybe take a week apart and then it wouldn’t be so hard to see you, but that one week turned in to two and then a month had gone by. My feelings for you hadn’t diminished and then I had waited too long to just show up at your doorstep.”

“I wouldn’t have turned you away,” Emma offered quietly.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had,” she said. “As a friend it was a pretty terrible thing to do. As a partner, unacceptable. As someone who…” she cut herself off. “I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

Emma got to her feet, circled the coffee table and took a seat on the couch next to Regina. The coffee brown eyes had flashed through panic when she stood only to fall straight into confusion when she sat down again. Emma reached out and took Regina’s hand, holding it in her lap. “Have any of the guys told you how crazy I was while we were trying to find you?”

Regina shifted, turning her body so she was facing Emma as much as possible sitting side by side. “No.”

“When we found your car, I kind of caused a scene,” Emma admitted. “Nolan had to yell at me to calm down.”

Regina’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘ _Oh_.’” She laughed lightly, without any real humor. “When I saw them leaning in to the trunk to take pictures, I just…the only thing I could see was you lying there. Broken. Even after Booth told me you weren’t there, I couldn’t…”

The hand she was holding gently squeezed, reassuring her. Emma appreciated it. “When I lost Neal, I grieved. I took the required time off, went to therapy, and handled it. If we hadn’t found you, or if we’d found you too late, I…I would not have handled it well.”

Regina waited for Emma to look up at her before she admitted, “If you had died, I would not have handled it well either.”

Without letting go of their joined hands, Emma settled further into the couch letting her head drop back. “Where does that leave us?”

Regina mirrored her position and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe we could go out on a date,” Emma suggested. “You know, something that doesn’t involve kidnappings.”

“Or hospitals.”

Emma thought that would be nice. “I’m still mad about the four months.”

“I’m still scared of my feelings,” Regina admitted quietly. She turned her head so she could see Emma. “I may run again.”

Emma smirked. “This time I’ll know to chase you.”

Regina ran her thumb over the blonde’s knuckles. “We work together. It could get complicated.”

“Pretty sure that ship has sailed,” she said dryly. “At least we don’t have to hide how we feel about each other.”

“How _do_ we feel about each other?”

“I don’t know.” Emma side-eyed the brunette. “Maybe something like a Greek tragedy in the first act but with a fairytale ending?”

“You think we deserve a happily ever after?”

“I think we deserve a shot at one.” She shifted on the couch, facing Regina. “Want to give it a try?”

Regina reached out with a cautious hand and tucked a long, blonde curl back behind Emma’s ear. She liked how Emma briefly closed her eyes as her fingers brushed across her cheek. It gave her hope; it made her brave. “Yes, I think I’d like that very much.”


	31. Epilogue

**One Year Later**

 

“Where’s Regina?”

Emma’s tornado of an entrance to the station, where she stormed right past the front desk officer, slammed open the bay door, and threw her bag under her desk with more force than was necessary barely registered a raised eyebrow. Killian didn’t even bother looking up from his paperwork.

August leaned back in his chair. “Your appearance, while much more dramatic, had absolutely nothing on hers. She was all menacing and silent.” His eyes widened in enjoyment. “I think there may have even been black smoke trailing behind her as she scorched the earth with her every step.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You heard then?”

“From her?” David asked, leaning against the door to his office, a cup of coffee in hand. “No, of course, not. Belle filled us in on the details.”

“The poor lass also swore that she would never ride anywhere in a car with Regina ever again,” Killian added. “Apparently our Detective Mills drives like a demon when she is displeased.”

Emma felt sympathy for Belle; she’d been in that passenger seat before. “Her car is out back. Is she still here?”

All three men pointed towards the hallway that led to the gym. Emma sighed and headed that way, stretching out her shoulders as she walked. This was not at all how she had expected today to go, and she worried what it had done to Regina’s head.   

After months of refusing plea deals and filing motions to suppress, hiring and firing defense attorneys, requesting appeals and delays, demanding full access to files and witnesses, Mendell had finally pled guilty on the day testimony was set to begin. The bastard had played with them again and despite the overall outcome being in their favor, Emma hated him all the more for it.

Everyone in the precinct had been prepping for trial for the past six months, filing paperwork, producing evidence, preparing testimony, but none more so than Emma and Regina. The process had been brutal and while neither of them had looked forward to testifying, it would have been cathartic in its own right. When Regina had left the house that morning, she’d been all clipped responses and rigid backbone. Despite her claims, Emma knew she hadn’t slept last night. Emma knew because she hadn’t slept last night. Now, all that pent up energy had to be directed somewhere.

Driving, hard music could be heard coming from behind the gym doors as Emma got close; she recognized it as an older song by Disturbed. She rolled the muscles in her neck; Regina hated this music and only listened to it when she was really pissed. Emma eased the door to the gym open and was assaulted with how loud the music was turned up. She couldn’t think of anyone in the station that had suicidal tendencies so it wasn’t a surprise to find Regina had the gym to herself.

As concerned as she was, Emma was not above taking the opportunity to appreciate the sight of Regina working out. The sports bra and tight fit capris left plenty to the imagination while also revealing way more than usual of the olive skin that Emma adored. Regina’s dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail but the sheen of sweat she had worked up had the shorter strands darkened and plastered to her neck. Clearly, she had already been at her routine for a while. The music switched to another pulse pounding song that Emma didn’t know and she realized she’d been standing there watching for a full two minutes. It was a testament to Regina’s mood that she hadn’t noticed.

Emma shucked her jacket and moved further into the gym so Regina would see her. The brunette noticed immediately but continued her set of dips at the edge of the weight bench. Emma didn’t mind; she would happily watch the perfectly defined muscles flex and pull for as long as Regina wanted to work out.

Regina had a pretty strict policy about public displays of affection, but Emma watching her every move from a few feet away wasn’t something she could really scold. Their relationship wasn’t a secret and if it weren’t for the decibel deafening music they could simply be having a conversation instead of the silent eye-lock they were currently engaging in. She finished her rep of twenty-five just as the current song was ending.

Reluctantly, she took a seat on the bench and used the remote to click off the music. Emma shook her head at the immediate silence and looked expectantly at Regina. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You weren’t at the court house.”

The anger from the earlier revelation rolled back over her. “Apparently, there was no need for me to be there.”

“He’s going to go away for a long time, Regina,” Emma pointed out, playing devil’s advocate. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

Regina’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t sit there and act like you aren’t just as angry as I am.” She pushed to her feet and grabbed two free weights and began doing curls. “That bastard never had any intention of going through with a trial. He just wanted to watch us twist.”

“Which is what we expected,” Emma said with a shrug. She couldn’t deny her own anger at the situation but calming Regina was more important. She could knock her aggression out later with a long run, a really, really long run. “You knew going in this morning that this was a strong possibility.”

Regina merely grunted; an expression that was usually reserved for use by Emma. Regina preferred using her words and occasionally her fists. Unlike Emma, a runner she was not. Emma glanced over at the heavy bag in the corner. “You want to throw some punches?”

Regina’s shoulders slumped and she set the free weights down on the rack. “I already did.”

“Regina?” Emma’s voice held a warning as she looked at Regina’s fingerless workout gloves. She got to her feet and stood in front of the brunette, demanding to see her hands. “Show me.”

Regina sighed and winced as she reluctantly pulled of the gloves and lifted her hands to Emma’s. The knuckles were all scraped red and bruising. She hissed when Emma ran a thumb over them and barely managed to keep herself from pulling back. She watched the muscle in Emma’s jaw begin to pulse and mentally berated herself. They only had a few rules in their relationship, but doing something reckless and avoidable that could cause harm to themselves was one of them.

Emma seemed to take an inordinately long time to respond, never once releasing Regina’s hands from her own. Finally, she exhaled a long breath. “You know this means you’re done for the day, right?”

She'd known as soon as she'd done it, known while she was doing it, but it hadn't stopped her. Her hands would ache tomorrow, but at the time it had simply felt too good. She'd needed to hit something and taking the time to properly wrap her hands would've taken longer than she'd been able to wait. 

Emma was waiting for her answer and Regina nodded, feeling properly chastised and slightly childish. “Yes.”

“Good.” Emma dropped her hands, surprisingly letting it go without further rebuke. “I’ll see you back at the house then.”

She turned to leave but Regina reached out and grabbed her arm. “Emma, wait.” Green eyes met hers and Regina found she couldn’t hold them; she looked down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…I was just so _mad_.”

Emma hooked her finger under Regina’s chin and made her look up. “I know. It’s all right…just don’t let him win, right?”

“Right,” she breathed; it was something she was still working on. Probably would be for a while, but she knew what she wanted was beyond her anger. She nodded and repeated the silly mantra they'd come up with for moments like this when one of them needed reminding. “We deserve a happy ending.”

A flicker of expression raced across Emma’s features and her mouth widened to a smile that reached her eyes. She started to say something and then stopped abruptly with a small shake of her head; the grin however remained. 

“Emma?” It had happened so fast that Regina would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking right at the blonde. “What is it?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing, never mind.” Emma said quickly, a light blush crept into her cheeks as she cast her eyes downward.

Regina felt a grin of her own at seeing the blood rush into the Emma’s cheeks. It also relieved the small bite of concern Emma’s initial refusal had sparked. Whatever Emma had been thinking, and it wasn’t nothing, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Not if it had made her grin and blush. It was however something Regina desperately wanted to know.  “Hmmm.” 

Emma’s head snapped up at the vague reply. They were both trained interrogators. She knew sometimes the best strategy was to simply have patience and wait for the person to tell you everything you wanted to know. Patience was not Emma’s strong suit, but she knew Regina was a master at it.

She started backing for the door. “I’ll just, uhm…I’ll see you at home.” She gestured wildly towards Regina’s hands. “We’ll put some ice on those lethal weapons of yours.”

“Emma.”

Her hand was on the door. All she had to do was push it open and slide through. And what? Pretend she hadn’t heard Regina say her name? That would go over well. She could chuck any ideas she may have had about how their evening would go right out the window if she attempted that bit of rudeness. No, she needed to acknowledge her. She cleared her throat, but kept her hand on her escape hatch. “Yeah?”

Silence was the only response she received. Because of course, Regina would wait for eye contact. Emma resisted banging her head on the door and turned around. Regina stood, patiently waiting, just as she’d known she would be. The woman could be a damn statue when it suited her. Several cowardly seconds passed before Emma finally met the brown eyes that were absolutely sparkling with amusement. 

Regina gave it a full ten seconds. “You were blushing.”

Emma shrugged even as she felt her cheeks begin to heat again.

“You don’t blush easily,” Regina pointed out. She would know. There had been many a conversation between them that had surprised Regina to the core that had garnered merely a shrug from the blonde. “I’m very curious what you were thinking that had you so…” Embarrassed was the word she wanted to use but didn’t think Emma would appreciate that much candor. “Flustered.”

“It was stupid,” Emma muttered.

Regina moved closer to her and lowered her voice. “I’d still like to know.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t do that,” Emma whined. Regina was using her sexy voice and it wasn’t fair. “It was just a stray thought, and now we’ve turned it into this big, huge thing. It was nothing.”

Regina took her by the hands and waited. If it was such a nothing thought, Emma would’ve already told her. Or forgotten it. No, whatever it had been, it was not nothing.

“It was cheesy,” Emma tried futilely. Regina’s thumb stroked over the back of her hand. Emma resigned herself to future years of embarrassment. She muttered what she’d been thinking.

It was mumbled just low and fast enough that Regina didn’t quite catch it. Her cheeks were beginning to hurt from trying to control her expression. An embarrassed Emma was quite the sight to behold. “Again, please.”

Emma sighed so heavily it could’ve brought a house down, but she looked Regina in the eye. “I said, _you_ are my happy ending.” She half shrugged and dropped her gaze. “That’s what I was thinking. You said we deserve a happy ending and all I could think was that I already have mine.” She risked a quick glace up when Regina didn’t respond. She couldn’t decipher the expression on the brunette’s face and felt her cheeks heat up even more. “I told you it was che-”

Any rules Regina had ever established about public displays of affection or acting unprofessionally in the workplace were tossed aside. Emma’s back hit the door and she was so relieved she hadn’t actually turned the handle because no matter how much Regina was kissing her, if they’d fallen into the hallway, Detective Mills may have never recovered from displaying that level of humanity. Instead, Emma was able to revel in the lips that were pressed against hers, the bruised hands that cupped her face, and the shuddering body that completely enfolded her as Regina moved from kissing her to hugging her tighter than she ever had before. 

Storybrooke might not be a city of fairy-tale endings for everyone, but as Regina whispered three heartfelt words in her ear, Emma knew she wasn’t the only one that had finally found her happy ending.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ATTHS
> 
> I seriously thought there would be more sexy stuff here at the end but they just would not go there for me. I tried. Several times. I assume they simply wanted their privacy. Apologies, if that's what you had been expecting.
> 
> Other than that, Thank You so much to everyone for reading, for leaving kudos, and commenting. I really appreciate the support, and I hope you enjoyed the story!


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